Saturday, January 26, 2019

Border Defense Obstruction


Pelosi’s Shutdown: Why Americans Increasingly Blame Her for Failing to Reopen the Government, by Liberty Report, 1/24/19.

Did you know that we’re still in a partial government shutdown? Of course you did. It’s hard to miss. This shutdown has broken records, and it’s finally gone long enough that some of the doom and gloom sentiment could start to come true. Federal workers are about to miss their second paycheck, and if Congress can’t pass a budget soon, we’re going to start to see some economic fallout from the shutdown.

While the left still tries to blame President Trump for the shutdown, they have taken unequivocal ownership of this problem. The President hasn’t even been given a budget to veto, and the House is now adamantly refusing any level of compromise.

Pelosi’s Requests - To understand this shutdown, you have to take a look at both sides. We can leave the blame game alone and resolve to know where the contentions exist and why a compromise hasn’t yet been reached. For Pelosi and her constituents, a federal budget will be unacceptable unless it meets a few criteria.

Some of the points that have been most vocalized are specific changes to immigration policy and procedure. The Democrats want protection for anyone formally classified under DACA. They also want to extend protections for people in America under the umbrella of Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

No, that’s not nearly all. They also want to expand resources for processing asylum seekers and similarly displaced people crossing the border. In addition, they want unilateral control over all discretionary spending in the United States, and that includes a policy of spending $0 on improving border security, even though the asylum processing would come from the same budget they won’t increase.
Lastly, they want Trump’s metaphorical head on a silver platter. At least, we hope it’s a metaphor.

Trump’s Offer - Knowing this, President Trump made an offer. He asked for $5.7 billion to expand border security. Among those dollars, nearly $1 billion is earmarked specifically to expand personnel, facilities and other resources dedicated to processing asylum and refugee cases. The goal of this money is to ensure we can handle the cases without separating families or having lapses in humanitarian aid during the process.

To compromise with the Democrats, Trump also offered a three-year extension on both DACA and TPS protections. Other than that, he’s actually left the rest of discretionary spending up to the Democrats in the House.

Calling this offer a compromise is an understatement. He’s given them absolutely everything they want in exchange for $5 billion of increased border security and his head on a platter. Signing this offer would be a huge win for the left too.

The Devastating Refusal - The fact that the Democrats completely refused this offer without making a counter is insane. It’s basically everything they wanted. Sure, they could counter with a longer extension of protection for DACA and TPS. They could even negotiate on the price tag of border security. They did neither.

Instead, Nancy Pelosi fully rejected the offer before it was even made. Assuming she knew what would be in it, she said, “It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House,” and called the offer a non-starter.

That’s obviously stupid. Extended DACA and TPS status would easily pass the House. A billion dollars to protect asylum seekers also seems like an easy win for the left. They only contention they have with anything in the budget is that some of the $5 billion — that was requested by Border Patrol by the way — will go towards physical barriers in area where there are none. It’s a ridiculous, childish contention, and with this move, Nancy Pelosi has taken full ownership of this shutdown.

She panders to the people and bemoans how hard the shutdown is on federal workers. She tells us it’s crashing the economy and a danger to the people. Then, when she gets an offer that has absolutely everything she wants, she throws it completely out the window and refuses to even counter the offer. She did all of it to make sure President Trump can’t say that he made progress on his promise of a border wall. It’s downright heinous.

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress are direct enemies of the American people. Saying “gotcha” to Trump is more important to them than anything. They will gladly watch us all suffer, die and burn if it means they can score political points against Trump. There are no excuses. There are no words.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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