PRESS RELEASE
Trump-Democrats Deal Is a Sign of Political Shift
Sept. 6, 2017 (EIRNS)—In a White House meeting with the four Congressional leaders from both parties today, President Trump surprised Republicans and most media reporting the event, by deciding to support a proposal by Democrat leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi on budget and debt matters. The meeting has probably cleared the way for both Houses to pass this week a combination of $7.9 billion in recovery aid after Hurricane Harvey (primarily Federal Emergency Management Agency funds), a three-month lifting of the so-called Federal debt ceiling, and a three-month continuing resolution for funding government operations. Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, had opposed the short-term extensions (Ryan publicly) just hours before.
The leading Congressional Democrats, including Pelosi in public statements over last weekend, have had to acknowledge the dangerous failure of their attempts to whip up "total resistance," impeachment, or other removal of President Trump from office, even to the point of embracing violent "antifa" anarchist demonstrations and attacks.
The Schumer/Pelosi decision today to offer an uncomplicated, if temporary, opening for large-scale Federal funding of hurricane recovery and rebuilding, is a sign of a shift towards potential collaboration between the President and Congress, completely impossible until now. The Democratic leaders avoided any criticism of Trump or Republicans in their subsequent press conference. On another matter—the Administration’s ending of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order on immigration over the next two years—the Democrats suddenly appeared optimistic that Congress would pass legislation quickly to remedy the situation, just as Trump had proposed Sept. 5.
Trump, himself, had earlier gotten the Republican leadership to agree to link the hurricane recovery aid to a raise in the debt ceiling, challenging the "no government spending" wing of the GOP—a strategy which both required and invited Democratic support.
Also, this development, in the context of the lesson of Hurricane Harvey, has improved the openness of members of Congress to discuss a national credit institution to fund new high-technology infrastructure.
