LETTER TO THE EDITOR / THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Roger C. Kostmayer

Pressure builds from the bottom up. Citizens, voters, constituents and donors, many of whom are being hurt by the shutdown, are increasing their demands that politicians do their job, open the government and pay federal employees. When Senators feel this pressure (and they’re beginning to) they, in turn, pressure Senate Leader McConnell to allow them to vote on a solution. At some point, McConnell will realize that the Republicans could lose Senate seats in 2020 because of the Trump shutdown, and that could mean McConnell would no longer be Leader. Then, and only then, will he allow the Senate to vote on a bipartisan compromise and tell the President the shutdown is over – with or without his vanity wall.

For their part, the Democrats must stay united and protect principle while producing pragmatic results. The principle is that there can be no bipartisan negotiations & compromise while the government is closed and hundreds of thousands of American families have not been paid for their work. In addition to the obvious human reasons for holding the line, is the real danger that by failing to do so they would create a disastrous precedent encouraging future leaders of both parties to get what they want by shutting down the U.S. government.

The legislative compromise that would begin immediately following the reopening, should include additional funds for: border and port security, immigration judges, reinstitution of permanent “Dreamer” solutions (DACA) , and even some (high tech or physical) border protections that could be referred to as – “the wall”.

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