A wide-ranging two-year budget deal, spearheaded by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, has been struck — now it’s all up to the fickle President to approve or scuttle the agreement.
Lovely. The Democrats agree to lift the debt ceiling for the remainder of Trump’s term. Anybody think that the Republicans will extend the same courtesy to a Democratic President in 2021?
It’s also good for Dem candidates (ETA: Maybe only during the election. if a Dem becomes prez in 2020, he/she will have to tackle a lot of problems resulting from this deal).
POLITICO: The two-year extension kicks the politically unpopular issue past next year’s presidential cycle, offering much-needed breathing room for both parties.
Odds are good he scuttles it. Drudge has had one story after another about “Crushing Debt” for a few weeks now. Plus, Dotard thinks he won the last shutdown.
Will the Club For Growth be grading Republicans in Congress and Trump on this one?
It ain’t over until the fat ass sings.
Republicans like to hold a gun to the head of the economy. We don’t. It’s an important difference, and I’d rather the parties differ on the issue than both be insane psychopaths. Maybe someday neither will be insane psychopaths! Dare to dream.
Past history has shown that Trump is very fond of utilizing a disingenuous negotiation strategy - agree … then at the 11th hour - make demand for major changes … and threaten to blowup the whole deal if it is not reconfigured to his satisfaction.
“Utilizing” might be giving him too much credit! As though a cat “utilizes” a length of string and must be rescued by its owner after becoming hopelessly entangled.
Yup, its a “when” not “if” for Trump scuttling the deal.
He’ll sign that budget agreement once it hits his desk and be happy to do so:
The agreed-upon package includes enough sweeteners for both sides to claim victory, including a bump in defense spending — a top priority for Republicans — and the domestic priorities touted by Democrats.
“This was a real compromise in order to give another big victory to our Great Military and Vets!” Trump added in a follow-up tweet.
If he doesn’t, the stock market will sink. The economy and market are the only reasons he can point to why he should be reelected.
Let’s hope you’re right, bonvivant. If he’s smart, he’ll sign it. But if Mulvaney and the Freedom Caucus get in his grille, he can invent an excuse to justify a veto. It ain’t over till it’s over, as Yogi Berra used to say.
My prediction…He’ll sign it but not without threats of not signing it and creating a drama around it over some false claim. Then Republicans will privately tell him he can’t allow the debt ceiling to go past its due date to risk the full faith and credit of the US. He’ll then pretend he was always going to sign it but got concessions after creating his momentary ruckus. I sure hope there’s a clause in there that says he can’t rob domestic spending to build his fucking wall or some other transfer of funds for private kiddie jails and the like.
Anybody but @georgeh thinks that one party’s preference for blackmail over governing should be answered by the second party switching from governing to blackmail?
IIRC the budget deal reached in September 2015 suspended the debt ceiling until early 2017.
Trump isn’t the easiest person to predict. That said, I have no doubt he’ll sign it and be happy to have it behind him. Then he can concentrate on kicking 3 million off of food stamps:
The Trump administration on Tuesday will propose a rule to tighten food stamp restrictions that would cut about 3.1 million people from the program, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said.
Currently, 43 U.S. states allow residents to automatically become eligible for food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, if they receive benefits from another federal program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, according to the USDA.
The agency now wants to require people who receive TANF benefits to pass a review of their income and assets to determine whether they are eligible for free food from SNAP, officials said.
If enacted, the rule would save the federal government about $2.5 billion a year by removing people from SNAP, according to the USDA.
Added:
He then can also devote more energy into demonizing “the squad” and trying to provoke them into responding to his attacks so conservative media can then pile on with the communist/socialist branding.
Those two things according to polling that are even more unpopular than Muslims. The more he keeps that fight in the public eye, the better for him and Republicans.
Google national polling numbers for AOC or any of the other three and it will become clear why he wants to keep this “squad” fight to going and paint them as the face of the Democratic party. I have a feeling the video of Rashida Tlaib being dragged out of a Trump campaign rally in Detroit will get played a lot on conservative media.
Great, just what we need, an even more bloated military budget while people starve to death, die of preventable illnesses, the climate destabilizes, etc. etc. I’m an agnostic and even I’m starting to hope for the rapture.
I’m hoping Ds will be fully in charge so it won’t matter what Rs want!
That would be the scenario that I expect to see. Both sides might actually have a wish card in their pockets for just this possibility.
Now it faces the hurdles of passage in both chambers and getting Trump’s signature.
Oh, just that then. Piece of cake. (((eye roll)))