David Dayen and Prospect co-founder Bob Kuttner look at the politics and policy of the end of the government shutdown.
Budget
Posted inTAP
The Shutdown’s End as a Republican Victory? No Way.
The shutdown enabled the Democrats to highlight the Republicans’ withdrawal of health coverage from millions of Americans, and Trump’s withholding food stamps—while he was praising himself for building a ballroom and rebuilding the Lincoln bathroom—only accelerated his descent in the polls.
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The Most Frustrating Thing About the Shutdown Cave
Senate Democrats actually know how to use their power to counter Donald Trump and ensure that legislative funding gets spent—but this continuing resolution makes it clear they chose not to.
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Democrats Get Rolled by Their Own
Coming out of last Tuesday’s election blowout, the Democrats were riding high and unified. But on Sunday night, centrist Senate Democrats, with Chuck Schumer’s tacit encouragement, voted to reopen the government on Republican terms.
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Poll: Trump Is Not Delivering on Foreign Policy
Overall, Americans are not pleased with President Trump’s performance on foreign policy: 50 percent grade him as “poor” against 37 percent as “good,” and on a range of foreign-policy topics, he is only above water on stopping “international drug trafficking.”
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The Republican Plot to Turn Pennsylvania Into Hungary
Judicial retention elections are normally pretty sleepy, but the Pennsylvania Republican Party, led by right-wing megadonor Jeff Yass, who is also the richest person in the state, is conducting an all-out effort to get rid of three Democrats on the state Supreme Court.
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To Win the Shutdown, Democrats Need a Big Switch
Democrats have positioned the shutdown as about health care, which is very easy for Republicans to dismiss.
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The ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ Phase of the Shutdown
These haphazard funding cuts and firings will only continue, because they are manifestly not tied to a shutdown
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The Real Problem With the Trump Shutdown
The reactionary Supreme Court has given him Congress’s power of the purse.
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The Government Has Been Shut Down for Months
Today is the day we stop pretending that it’s not.