A key White House aide and former lawmaker that spearheaded fiscal gridlock under President Obama is reportedly at it again.
Mick Mulvaney is asking GOP legislators to support a controversial immigration provision on a bill required to keep the government funded by the end of the month, according to Politico.
The Office of Management and Budget Director is seeking legislative “language to restrict federal funding grants” for localities that refuse to assist immigration officials, the publication reported.
Supporters of so-called “sanctuary cities” say the practice engenders trust between local police and their communities by taking the burden of federal immigration enforcement off of municipal governments.
Democrats have repeatedly stated that they will not consider any so-called “policy riders” on government funding authorization bills. Last week, they reiterated their support for “clean” financing measures.
Liberal lawmakers have accused Republicans of using the government funding debate to seek money for another nativist initiative — Trump’s US-Mexico border wall.
Republicans are keen themselves on avoiding a shutdown so soon into the Trump administration. But White House encouragement of sanctuary cities provisions would only push both parties toward a fiscal impasse.
“It would blow up any chance of a bipartisan deal. Getting wall money is hard enough, and you get a guy pushing new riders out of nowhere,” a Republican legislative staffer told Politico. “I don’t see how catering to the Freedom Caucus votes help on [the] spending bill,” he said.
The Freedom Caucus is a far-right faction of GOP lawmakers in the House. Mulvaney was a founding member.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also told Politico that he will likely need Democrats’ votes in order to surpass the filibuster threshold. Senate supermajority requirements can still be invoked for legislation, despite them having been fully “nuked” for judicial nominations.
“Most things in the Senate do require 60 votes. Democrats are not irrelevant,” McConnell said. “The first big test of that will be the funding bill when we get back.”
After Mulvaney was elected to the House in 2010, he joined the Tea Party Caucus, pushing fellow lawmakers toward withholding support for previously-routine government funding bills. The faction claimed their efforts were designed to rein in the national debt.
In 2013, Mulvaney tried to put a positive spin on his legislative efforts by describing a government shutdown as a “government slowdown.”
“[Y]ou should know that our troops are still being paid and social security checks are going out,” then-Rep. Mulvaney (R-S.C.) said. “In fact, about 75 percent of the government is open for business.”
Mulvaney also pushed hard against raising the debt ceiling, despite once claiming, in 2011, that he didn’t know what would happen if the US government breached the limit. Analysts have said that a sovereign default would be triggered.
In August 2011, uncertainty over the Tea Party Congress’ ability to raise the debt ceiling caused S&P to downgrade US government credit for the first time in history.
“The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable,” the ratings agency stated.
Despite this, Mulvaney spun the downgrade as vindication for his camp.
“A downgrade is exactly what we should expect when we have so much debt and have shown so little interest in actually spending less,” he claimed, in response.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy