Washington Post editorial board warns Democrats walking into ‘shutdown trap’
BY TARA SUTER - 10
In an op-ed published Wednesday morning, the board noted that Democrats “shut off any potential escape valve to avoid a shutdown” when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), facing a left-wing revolt, apparently backed off a potential plan to buy more time for negotiations.
“In doing so, progressives embraced the same disastrous mentality that led the House Freedom Caucus to believe it could come out ahead in previous government funding standoffs: They wrongly assumed their political leverage would withstand the ensuing fallout,” the board wrote.
The federal government formally went into a shutdown at midnight after congressional leaders were unable to reach a deal on a stopgap spending bill. Two Democratic senators and one independent voted for the Republican stopgap spending bill Tuesday evening.
But the large majority of Democrats in the House and Senate are demanding that Republicans agree to repeal Medicaid cuts and extend ObamaCare subsidies in exchange for their votes to reopen the government.
The Post’s editorial board said Republicans shared blame for the shutdown by refusing to negotiate with Democrats and criticized President Trump’s “provocative social media jabs” targeting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
“Nevertheless, the public has proved to be unsupportive of lawmakers who create unnecessary crises to extract political concessions,” it wrote. “Democrats who quietly favor a shutdown dismiss this as trite conventional wisdom. Republicans haven’t been afraid of hardball politics, and they have seemingly suffered no meaningful consequences for it. So why not play their own game, especially when Democratic voters are eager to see elected officials stand up to Trump?”
Washington Post editorial board warns Democrats walking into ‘shutdown trap’
The editorial board of The Washington Post is warning that progressive Democrats are leading the party into a “shutdown trap.” In an op-ed published Wednesday morning, the board noted that Democrat…
thehill.com

