Nancy Pelosi is no Hero
Nancy Pelosi is no hero because the Speaker of the House failed average Americans during the government shutdown.
In fact, President Donald J. Trump (R-New York) is presenting Representative Pelosi (D-California) with a magnificent opportunity to achieve Democratic goals. Moreover, Pelosi is demonstrating she does not care about government workers by refusing to work with Trump.
In detail, Trump is publicly offering Pelosi the chance to make a deal on whatever she wants in exchange for $5 billion in funding for his “Border Wall” scheme. Moreover, $5 billion is a small amount when The Balance estimates the 2019 federal budget at $4.407 trillion.
Nancy Pelosi does not Care about Federal Workers
Yet, Pelosi is not willing to make that small concession to keep the federal government open and workers getting paid. Hence; like Trump, Pelosi does not care about federal employees.
Instead, the Speaker prefers seeing federal workers at the food bank to compromises. Disgustingly, Pelosi values the chance to hurt Trump with bad publicity over federal workers families.
To explain, Pelosi thinks the bad publicity from the shutdown will help Democrats at the polls in 2020. Thus, she values votes over America and federal employees’ wellbeing.
Nancy Pelosi just missed a chance to pass the DREAM Act
Incredibly, Trump is presenting Pelosi with an opportunity to achieve a major Democratic goal that could help many people.
Specifically, Pelosi had an excellent chance to pass the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors or DREAM Act and blew it. To clarify, the DREAM Act grants legal status; and opens the path citizenship, for people brought to America illegally as children.
Interestingly, USA Today estimates there are 3.6 million Dreamers brought to the country before their 18th birthdays. However, many of those people have no legal status which is what the DREAM Act will rectify.
Trump admits publicly that he will compromise on the dreamers’ legal status. Hence, Pelosi could have dusted off the DREAM Act, added Trump’s Border Wall funding to it, and got it passed.
Note: all it will take to add Wall funding to The Dream Act is five minutes of cut and paste in Microsoft Word. Thus, both Democrats and Trump own the government shutdown.
Nancy Pelosi is no Hero and a poor Strategist
Passing the DREAM Act will help Democrats by attracting millions of Hispanic voters. Furthermore, those voters will remember the DREAM Act for years; or decades to come when all the negative publicity about the Wall is a footnote in the history books.
Plus, $5 billion is not enough to build the Wall only to begin it. Instead, Democrats can end wall construction permanently by electing a Democratic President in 2020. In the meantime, making a tactical retreat on the issue is a good strategy. Unfortunately, Pelosi seems to have no conception of strategy and prefers winner take all.
Finally, the DREAM Act is one of the few items on the Democrats’ current policy wish list that might pass the Republican U.S. Senate. A few Republican Senators will vote for the DREAM Act. On the other hand, I cannot imagine Republican Senators voting for gun control, liberal judges, voting rights, tax increases, or single-payer healthcare.
Nancy Pelosi does not care about average Americans
In the final analysis, Pelosi is just as responsible for the government shutdown as Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). Nancy Pelosi is no hero because she cynically used a crisis to promote her party.
Thus, all the stories about Pelosi’s heroism are nonsense. We need new leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives because Nancy Pelosi does not care about average Americans.
Nancy Pelosi is no hero because she prefers leaving the Dreamers in legal limbo and government workers unpaid to working with Donald J. Trump.