Late Friday night, the Senate failed to pass the short term spending bill. It was a close party-line vote, with almost all Republicans voting yes and almost all Democrats voting no. Five republicans, including Lindsey Graham (SC) and Jeff Flake (AZ), voted against the bill while five Democrats, four of whom are running in the 2018 midterm elections and one of whom is the recently elected Doug Jones (AL), voted for the bill. John McCain was undergoing cancer treatment and was unable to vote, so the final vote was 50-49, far from the 60 votes needed to pass the bill.
To see how senators voted: CNBC's tableau graphic
As soon as (and before) the government shut down at midnight, many Senators and other politicians began pointing fingers and shifting blame to the opposite party. Senate Democrats claimed that the Republicans were at fault because they controlled both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency. Senate Republicans claimed that the Democrats were at fault because not enough Senate Democrats voted to pass the spending bill (60 votes were needed). Senate Democrats also claimed that Trump had ruined negotiations by changing his mind so often on the bipartisan immigration deal.
Sources:
New York Times
CNBC
CBS News
Reuters
NPR Politics Podcast
Questions:
1. Who do you think is most at fault for the government shutdown?
2. How do you think this shutdown could have been prevented?
3. What do you think are the best next steps from here?
3 comments:
As the leader of the Republican party which controls all three branches of the government, Trump is responsible for the government shutdown. Instead of changing his mind so many times, Trump should be able to come up with a unified message that 60 senators will support. Trump was close to coming to an agreement with Chuck Schumer on the border wall and protection for the Dreamers, but his inability to stick to this proposed deal led to confusion among the senators and ultimately the shutdown.
It wouldn’t be fair to put the blame on a single party or individual for the shutdown as there are so many veto points in the process. For starters, Democrats have openly objected the immigration plan that President Trump insists upon so, I don’t understand what he thought would happen when he proposed this piece of legislature. Furthermore, there needs to be 60 votes to end the debate on the bill and 51 votes to pass it. There are only 51 Republican Senators so they would need 9 Democrats to change their minds in order to end the debate on the bill. Thus, you could also partially blame the Democrats for the shutdown. On top of that, there are three Republican Senators that stated they did not like the bill and would either not vote for it or would be extremely skeptical of it. Therefore, even if they achieved 60 votes to end the debate on the bill, there doesn’t seem to be enough Republicans on board to pass it. It seems that this was just doomed from the start and it also seems that there are different individuals and parties to blame.
I see Natalie's point and I don't deny Trump's responsibility in the government shutdown. However, I align more closely with Toni's view and I try not to assign sole blame to one party, branch, or person. I think the immigration and DACA issue definitely complicated the budget bill and divided the Senate on this. While I admire the Senators who opposed the bill and who have worked tireless on a bipartisan resolution, I am disappointed in Congress as a whole. As Senators mince over the budgetary details, Americans who receive a salary or aid from government funds suffer. It's events like the government shutdown (the SECOND time in the past five years) that further divide the American public from Washington.
What should the next steps be? Pass the budget, even if it means dividing the DACA issue from the bill and dealing with it separately. I don't want the DACA program to go unfunded (because that also has real-life consequences), but I also want the government reopened and functioning as soon as possible.
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