Jan. 20: Trump's one-year anniversary marked by government shutdown

The news of the day is whether or not the government will go into shutdown mode at 12:01 am on Saturday, Jan. 20th.

As I am writing this late Friday night, unless there is a major breakthrough in the next hour, this is what will happen.

The major point of disagreement is that Republicans want simply to do what the House has done:   pass a temporary funding bill without dealing with the fraught questions, like renewing the DACA program that protects "Dreamers" from being deported.

Just days ago, President Trump told a bipartisan group of legislators that he would sign whatever they put on his desk if both sides support it.   When they did just that, he reneged and went back to insisting that he will not agree to fixing DACA unless the bill includes funding for his Wall. 

That's where it's apparently stuck in the Senate.   The Dems know they won't have this much leverage on DACA again before the deadline Trump has already set for DACA to expire.   Why should anyone believe anything that Trump promises?  He's proved reoeatedly he won't keep his word.

We'll know in the morning -- or at 12:01 am if you're up that late.

Ralph

PS:  12:01 am.   The government is technically in shutdown.   But for the past hour there have been intense discussions and negotiations going on among senators informally gathered in small groups on the Senate floor.   They did take a vote beginning at 10:15 to proceed to debate on the House bill.   It failed to get the 60 votes necessary by Senate rules.   Five Republicans voted against their party's bill;  four Democrats voted for it -- all are up for re-election in states that Trump won.

Technically, they left the vote open with the possibility of persuading some members to change their votes.   But the Republicans were 9 votes short and didn't get any changes.  When the clock reached midnight, the shutdown was inevitable.

What is probably going to happen now is this:   Reports are that they are very close to some agreement that could pass.   So the likely plan, as of this time, is that they will try to come up with something by Monday to buy time for a bill, and then reopen the government with only a couple of days closure.  

But the image -- including a clip from 2013 of Donald Trump saying at that time:  "When there is a government shutdown, it is the president's fault" -- on the first anniversary of Trump's inauguration will be the image of the Trump Shutdown.  As Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pointed out, no one bears more responsibility for this failure than the president.  Twice he walked away from a bipartisan proposal, insisting that money for his border wall must be included.