The president has threatened a government shutdown if Congress doesn’ t approve funding for a border wall, but Democrats view his ultimatum as a gift.
WASHINGTON — President Trump handed Democrats a gift this week with his vow to shut down the government if he doesn’ t soon get money for his border wall.
Democrats may be only too happy to let him follow through on his threat since it will now be easy for them to blame the president for any government interruption, which would probably aggravate many Americans.
Rather than cowing Democrats, Mr. Trump’s tough talk is more likely to embolden the opposition in ongoing negotiations, particularly since he has now twice suggested he was willing to shutter government agencies if he didn’ t get his way.
It also puts more pressure on Republicans to find the votes internally to pass spending bills and an increase in the federal debt limit — two things hard-right conservatives in the House and Senate have refused to support in the past. That Republican resistance provides Democrats leverage — Republicans can either grant concessions such as no wall money or produce all the votes for the spending bills and debt limit increase themselves.
Mr. Trump also has spent the past few weeks taunting and denigrating Republican leaders who will be responsible for navigating these formidable fiscal obstacles, providing them incentive to look out for themselves rather than the interests of the president.
On Thursday, the president again undercut Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and Speaker Paul D. Ryan, saying they had failed to embrace his proposed maneuver to raise the debt limit by tying it to a popular veteran benefits bill.
“Could have been so easy — now a mess!” the president tweeted.
Seizing the opening, Democrats wasted no time putting the onus squarely on Republicans for any economic upheaval to come.
“With the White House, House and Senate under one-party control, the American people expect and deserve a plan from Republicans to avert a catastrophic default and ensure the full faith and credit of the United States, ” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, said Thursday. “With so much at risk for hard-working families, Republicans need to stop the chaos and sort themselves out in a hurry.”
Left unsaid by Ms. Pelosi was that Democrats would enthusiastically heap criticism and culpability upon Republicans if the government shut down, or if an even more damaging federal default took place.
Past government shutdowns have proved very unpopular among Americans, who might not like the government much but seem to be even unhappier when national parks, museums and other government operations are not open for business.
In the most recent shutdown, in 2013, House Republicans were widely seen as the culprits and were rescued from the harsh political fallout only by the Obama administration’s dismal rollout of the Affordable Care Act after the shutdown ended.
Adding to the risks for Republicans is that they control the levers of power at the White House and on Capitol Hill, making it harder for them to point fingers at Democrats if things go to pieces.
The government did briefly close multiple times during the Carter administration in the 1970s, when Democrats controlled the White House and Congress. But the cases since the Reagan years have come under divided government, allowing lawmakers and the president at least a chance to spread the blame. These days even top Republicans acknowledge that their party, as Mr. McConnell has said, owns the shutdown brand.
In the case of the debt limit, failure to approve an increase could cause the first default by the United States government, panicking the markets and jeopardizing trillions of dollars in holdings and retirement savings, among other potentially severe consequences. Trying to ease any fears, Mr. McConnell said this week that there was “zero chance” Congress would not raise the debt ceiling.
Following suit, Mr. Ryan sought on Wednesday to play down prospects of a shutdown.
“I don’ t think a government shutdown’s necessary, and I don’ t think most people want to see a government shutdown, ourselves included, ” Mr. Ryan said. He made clear that matters wouldn’ t necessarily come to a head on Sept. 30, when the fiscal year ends, suggesting that some sort of stopgap bill would be passed while the House and Senate worked out their spending differences. The real showdown might not come until much later, perhaps the approach of the holidays, when lawmakers always feel pressure to cut a deal.
But this is a decidedly new era, with an unpredictable president. Democrats won the last round of spending fights this year when they and Republican leaders agreed on a comprehensive spending deal that denied the administration its coveted wall money and then sent the measure to the White House.
Mr. Trump and his aides, wary of capping their first 100 days in office with a government closure, relented and the president reluctantly signed the measure.
Now the president and his advisers appear unwilling to swallow a second major spending package without funding for the wall — his central campaign promise — fearing it would cause a collapse in support from his base, which has largely stood by him so far. Those anti-establishment Trump voters may even relish a shutdown as a fitting comeuppance for Washington. It raises the possibility that Mr. Trump could reject a bipartisan spending plan that doesn’ t meet his demands, giving him sole ownership of a shutdown.
Lawmakers in both parties anticipate that Mr. Trump will back down in the end and claim victory over any border security money included in the package. But by threatening the shutdown over the wall funding at this stage, it is Mr. Trump who has fenced himself in.
