What Caused the Government Shutdown?

Everyone is concerned about the government shutdown that began last year, but few people really know what caused the shutdown. We all know what the news says? Blame Trump! His demands are unreasonable! That is not the full story though.

Despite what the Mainstream Media has been telling you, Trump is not to blame for the Government shutdown, but Congress. The 2018 Midterm elections caused a changing of the guard in U.S congressional districts across the nation. This placed Congress in a transition period, which led to a lame-duck session of Congress prior to the annual budget bill. In this lame-duck session, many congressional officials went home. This caused President Trump to lose the votes that he needed to pass the budget with funding for the border wall. If Lame-Duck Republicans had not gone home, the shutdown would not have occurred.

This has led to several complications for the beginning of the new year that the GOP and the Trump Administration must deal with.  When Congress begins its new session there is going to be a massive shift in power in the House of Representatives, as incoming Democrats take over the House. This means that GOP will effectively lose most of the votes needed to pass legislation in the House of Representatives. This will make it even more difficult to pass a budget with funding for the border wall.

There is also a concern among public policy advocates that any concession made by the Democrats on border wall funding will be met with heavy constraints. The most common border wall funding concession that Democrats offered is replacing and fixing preexisting barriers. Essentially replacing some of the fences on the southern border. We need legislation passed that provides enough funding for the creation of a strong barrier on our Southern Border. One proposal by Cruz would appropriate money confiscated from El-Chapo to construct the wall. The proposal would require Congress to appropriate 14 billion dollars in drug money towards the construction of a southern border wall. Now more than ever, Conservatives need to put pressure on Congress to pass funding for our border security.