Mitch McConnell Owns the Government Shutdown, Too

The Senate majority leader could help end Trump's debacle. Why is he pretending his hands are tied?

www.gq.com|Jay Willis

The president's willing acceptance of culpability, however, has allowed another individual—the third of the three elected officials with a role in ending this debacle—to avoid the level of scrutiny his actions merit.

The fact that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, to this point, has managed to keep him name mostly out of the debate is a tribute to his congenital dishonesty, unquenchable thirst for power, or some combination thereof.

On the rare occasions he has been asked about this sudden bout of amnesia, McConnell has argued that as Senate majority leader, his hands are tied. "The Senate will not waste its time," he explained on January 2, with a bill that "the President will not sign." 

Two days later, from the Senate floor, he added: 

"Making laws takes a presidential signature. We all learned that in grade school."

As constitutional scholars and/or anyone who watched Schoolhouse Rock knows, this is a lie. 

67 senators, by my count, is fewer than the 100 senators who voted to fund the government less than three weeks ago. 

In other words, McConnell could vote on the House's bills to re-open the government, and pass them no matter what the president thinks. 

He could hold votes on the six House bills that would fund crucial government agencies and programs—food stamps, Homeland Security, the IRS—and save the wall debate for another day. His inaction on these matters is a conscious choice.

This bears repeating every day until the government is open: Less than 24 hours before the shutdown, by voice vote, McConnell's Republican-controlled Senate passed a then-uncontroversial bill that did not contain wall money to fund the government through February 8.

The next day, all the country's worst right-wing media personalities crawled inside Donald Trump's ear and worked him into a frothy rage, and to spare the president the humiliation of having to fight a spending bill passed by his own party, disgraced lickspittle Paul Ryan decided not to bring the bill to the House floor. The shutdown began shortly thereafter.

Again: The Senate passed a continuing resolution by a vote of, effectively, 100-0, which means that every single Republican senator had concluded that their party need not shut down the government over the border wall. (Schumer and House speaker Nancy Pelosi briefly made this point last night, but since they chose to present themselves on TV as a Capitol Hill update to American Gothic, it may have eluded its intended audience.)

Only two things have changed since that unanimous vote: First, Democrats control the House, which means that Ryan's spinelessness is no longer an obstacle to holding votes. And second, Donald Trump told them McConnell he wouldn't sign any bill that doesn't include wall funding, and so McConnell has pretended to forget all about it.

Pay raises frozen for Pence, Cabinet members until shutdown is over

The Office of Personnel Management directed federal agencies to hold off on issuing expected pay raises for a number of senior government officials, including Vice President Mike Pence and Cabinet members, in a memo Friday evening.

www.cnn.com|Julie Gallagher, CNN

• On January 1, 2019, Trump issued an Executive Order freezing federal workers’ pay for 2019. Killing a 2.1% across-the-board pay raise. Happy New Year.
• US Armed Forces members, Trump PROMISED YOU a 10% pay increase. HE LIED. You got 2.6% 
• Pence’s pay is scheduled to rise from $230,700 to $243,500. 
• Cabinet secretaries would be entitled to a jump in annual salary from $199,700 to $210,700. 
• Deputy secretaries would be entitled to a raise from $179,700 to $189,600.