Today’s notice: Was all of this inevitable? Cuts, cuts and more cuts. “Friend conversations” in the Senate. Plus: Democrats and their activist base come to a truce — but will it last?
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Is this the negotiation or a done deal? The White House rolled out phase one of its so-called “maximum pain” shutdown plan yesterday. Painful? Yes. Shutdown-specific? Not so much. The moves — canceling funding and firing federal workers — are things the administration has either already tried to do or promised to do for a long time.
None of this is actually caused by the shutdown. So is the White House holding Democratic priorities for ransom? Or is it just dispatching Trump’s agenda more explicitly as punishment?
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On the former: Sen. Chuck Grassley said if Chuck Schumer “gets the votes to get the government up and running, then (OMB Director Russ Vought) wouldn’t have any excuse to do what he’s doing.”