March 15 will be an important day.

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-30-2017, 10:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Probably the government shutdowns were aimed at Democratic presidents (Obama and Clinton). I don't think Trump wants to shut down the government he now heads. I don't think Democrats want to shut it down to attack Trump.

The dynamic is funky.  There are a bunch of people who will all withhold their votes if they don't get their way on certain general highly partisan issues.  The Democrats will generally balk at an attempt to defund Planned Paranthood or Obamacare, for example.  McCain wants much better funding for the military, or he will withhold his vote.  A lot of Tea Party folk will balk if the budget overall isn't reduced.

The dynamic might echo the health debate.  There might be no middle ground where a sufficient majority of legislature is happy enough to vote yes.  It's just about given that any compromise that will have most of both Republican wings happy will get no votes from the Democratic side.  On the health issue, the Tea Party crowd was stubborn enough that all attempts to keep them happy just turned off the establishment Republicans.  There was on establishment guy who changed his vote from no to hell no.  Result...  fail.

I don't know that that many people want to shut down the government for the sake of political grandstanding, but there are a lot of people who won't let this issue or that be funded or defunded.

We'll just have to see.

In the past, the shut down the government votes have seldom resulted in major policy shifts.  After much yelling and screaming, something gets passed that extends the status quo.  The big issues get settled on their own votes.  While shut down votes are great for playing chicken in the press, they haven't been a good tool for actually changing policy.

But the division among the Republicans might have changed things.  If that disagreement was strong enough that they couldn't agree to repeal Obamacare, it might be strong enough to generate a real shutdown.