And we love our redundancy. Thank God It’s Friday Friday!

And government shutdown is likely. For the record, the GOP currently controls muddles along in the Senate, House, and Executive branches of government. Essentially, the GOP is playing with a majority of political marbles and they have the shooter — the big marble used to knock other marbles out of the ring. Prescedense OTUS, their shooter, isn’t very good at marbles though.  Golf is more his bag. But we mix metaphors and we digress.

The previous government shutdown in 2013 was over funding for the ACA during the Obama Administration.  That shutdown was driven by … the … GOP in a fight to delay or defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Fast forward to 2018, same dance, different song. Instead of dancing with healthcare insurance, we’re dancing to the new tune, DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. And the GOP is again taking the lead in the dance toward shutdown.

Shutdowns are more expensive than the Prescedense golf outings and the dollars don’t measure the stress of those affected but the DNC is standing ground on a DACA replacement or agreement.  And good!  The lead in this dance is a  heavy lumbering clod the GOP.  Supposedly, there was a bi-partisan bill on DACA but complaints about the deal — “maximum amnesty, minimum border security, and no cuts to legal immigration” — are deal breakers for … the GOP.

Let’s break those deal breakers down.

  • Amnesty is an official pardon for people who have been convicted of political offenses. Dreamers were children brought here with little or no choice.
  • Border security. Children raised on this side of the border are adults living here NOW. Deal with your issues of insecurity over an unsecured border in other legislation.
  • No cuts to legal immigration.  Don’t tie legal immigration to dreamers. They were children. They are adults. Make a way for legal US citizenship.

If there is no deal for the dreamers, the US will become an exporter of educated, tax-paying contributing legal-status seeking citizenry refugees. Sit with that while the government shuts down.

Read also US refugees: Misplaced persons.