Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how the left blames the right and the right blames the left.
Both are to blame.
Trump: I want a wall.
Pelosi: If we give in, he'll ask for more next time.
All the while, people living paycheck to paycheck were being played.
Both sides are sick, and sadly, most Americans won't break free from a left or right agenda LONG enough to witness how they're pawns in this game for power.
You do know the shutdown cost $6B, which is more than Trump's request.
and those poor contractors who won't be paid at all . . .
Who's looking after the "little people?"
Usually in politics, both sides would be to blame. In this particular instance, such is not the case. The GOP Senate had already passed by voice vote (and unanimously) a clean bill with no wall, because Trump told them he would sign it. However, he had been blustering about money for the wall and famously told Pelosi and Schumer that he would close the government down if he didn't get his way. Once Anne Coulture started to public shame Trump, he called in Ryan and got the House to pass a bill with wall funding in it. The Senate didn't take it up and the deadline expired for the shutdown. This was before Pelosi became Speaker.
Once the Dems took the House, they passed a bill that was identical to what the Senate had passed before Christmas that passed unanimously. Why didn't McConnell bring it to the floor? Hubris? Acquiesence? I don't know, but there was no reason, based on public support or past Senate action, for Pelosi to change course. After 35 days, she was proven right. The shutdown was all on Trump and McConnell. There were no "both sides" to this. Any suggestion there are or were is simply not accurate.