Two of President Donald Trump’s most significant second-term achievements, the $4.1 trillion tax cut and spending reconciliation bill and the second cease fire between Israel and Hamas, were accomplished by conventional legislative and diplomatic means of assembling and deploying coalitions to pursue mutual goals.
President Trump’s other ambitions involve partisan defiance of norms, laws and the Constitution to test their boundaries. While this second category – targeting as criminals those he perceives as political enemies, militarily entering cities led by Democrats and eroding Congress’ powers of the purse and the sword – has yielded more mixed results, the President is accelerating his pursuit.
Amid the weeks long lapse in appropriations, President Trump is rebalancing constitutional power toward executive supremacy by asserting power to fund and end government programs based on their partisan support and to spend money absent congressional appropriations. He has declared war on Venezuelans he claims are involved in drug trafficking without the constitutionally required congressional declaration. Because Congress has chosen to look askance at the usurpation of its authority and the Supreme Court has decided to temporarily sanction much if it, President Trump appears to believe his assertions of power will eventually be confirmed.
This conclusion leads the President shun any compromise with Democrats to fund government since doing so would restrict authorities he declares unbounded. Congressional Democrats, whose distrust of their Republican congressional counterparts is growing amid distorted attacks, are unwilling to reach agreement to fund government with anyone except President Trump. As a result, the government shutdown is likely to last longer than most anticipated, probably until closer to the November 21 end of the House-passed funding legislation.
While this bodes ill for approval of year-long spending bills, bipartisanship survives: the Senate last week passed a bipartisan Defense authorization, including a comprehensive housing rider agreed to unanimously.
