Congress hit the playing field for its favorite game, “Kick the Can.” After 185 grueling matches, they were pumped and ready to go.

The Senate kicked off with a continuing resolution that would keep the government going for seven more weeks, until February 7, 2018. It was passed by voice vote so we do not know how each member voted.

This is typical cowardly politics. If the House makes any changes, the resolution will come back to the Senate. They need to have a roll call vote so every Senator is accountable.

The House has possession and expected to have a wide open field to quickly seal the deal. Some Freedom Caucus members; however, are not going with the deal and will make a goal line stand to try to run out the clock.

Congressman Mark Meadows sent a pointed and common sense tweet:

“Punting to Feb. 8 on a CR not only gives Democrats a Christmas present, it offers them a Valentine’s Day gift. Democrats will win, the wall will not be built, and Congress will once again have punted when we should’ve been taking a stand. The time to fight is now. Zero excuse.”
Even though Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, Democrats can block any legislation with just 40 votes. So, in reality, it takes 60 votes to get anything past the Senate.

Republicans say that they cannot get those 60 votes. The next Senate will have a stronger Republican majority but still will not have 60 votes. The next House will be in the Democrat control so Nancy Pelosi will just stop any legislation there.

So, let’s keep this simple. President Trump said that he wants a wall.

This is what he said to Pelosi and Schumer on December 11, ” If we don’t get what we want one way or the other, whether it’s through you, through a military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government.”

Five billion is the cost for building the wall. Five billion is pocket change relative to the budget. Republicans could put that in the budget.

Today it would pass the House. Then in the Senate, the Democrats would threaten to refuse to act. If the President did not sign a budget by midnight tomorrow, the funding would lapse.

Critical government functions would continue and non-critical functions would not. We are right in the middle of Christmas holidays so the reality is that no one would even notice that the government was “shut down.”

So, Republican “leadership” strikes a great compromise without even trying. They would rather play kick the can, than take a stand and get the job done.

There is one issue and only one issue that is holding things up. Put 5 billion in the budget to build the wall.

I saw reports of some Republican leaders saying that they did not know what the White House wanted. It appears that they don’t know because they don’t want to know.

President Trump has been clear. The American people know what he wants. Fund the (expletive deleted) wall!

If Republicans in Congress will take a stand, President Trump will have their backs and the wall would be funded.

Their 186th episode of kick the can reveals that while Trump has their back, Republican leaders in Congress don’t have his.

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