*45th POTUS Donald Trump – Page 63

The U.S. slides into Christmas with a partial government shutdown, which began at just after midnight on Saturday morning, December 22, and may continue into the New Year. The partial shutdown is a result of the inability of representatives in Congress to reach an agreement with each other and with Donald Trump regarding his demands to fund a border wall. By Saturday, many House and Senate lawmakers had left town for the holidays, so a new vote is not likely in the near future. Fingers are pointing on both sides as to who is to blame for the partial shutdown.

Trump had said the previous week, on December 11, when a shutdown seemed a little less likely, that he would “own” a shutdown if it occurred. “I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck (speaking to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer). … I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it.”

On December 19, the Senate passed a bill that seemed amenable to Trump and that looked as if it would prevent a shutdown, at least through February. In an apparent reversal on December 20, however, Trump said he wouldn’t sign the bill, after all, and that he won’t sign any bill that doesn’t include his required $5 billion to fund his border wall.

The House was then set to pass a spending deal with Trump’s required $5 billion for the border wall, but without Senate Democrats’ votes, the bill won’t pass in the Senate. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the Senate would not take more votes until all sides could agree on a deal.

“When those negotiations produce a solution that is acceptable to all of those parties,” said McConnell, “It will receive a vote here on the Senate floor.”

On Friday, December 21, after previously declaring that he would “own” a shutdown, Trump did a turnaround tweet: “The Democrats now own the shutdown!”

In a video posted to Twitter, Trump said, “We’re going to have a shutdown. There’s nothing we can do about that because we need the Democrats to give us their votes. Call it a Democrat shutdown, call it whatever you want, but we need their help to get this approved.”

Though Trump blames the current partial shutdown on the Democrats, Senate Democrats did support the bill that passed on December 19, and that appeared to have Trump’s support, until he flip-flopped.

As House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi points out, “Democrats are for real border security solutions. Not for wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on an immoral, ineffective & expensive wall.”

Though government shutdowns have happened under other administrations, they are not common, especially under an administration in which one party controls all three branches. This, however, is the third shutdown in less than a year.

Partial government shutdown to continue through Christmas | Fox News [2018-12-24]

Day one of partial federal shutdown: Things go ‘from bad to worse’ |
PBS News Hour [2018-12-22]

On Friday, December 14, a federal judge in Texas ruled the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” unconstitutional. But it’s not quite that cut and dried. The “unconstitutionality” of the ACA lies not in the entire piece of legislation, but in the individual mandate portion. Nevertheless, because of the way the ACA is written, declaring the individual mandate unconstitutional deems the entire ACA unconstitutional, according to District Judge Reed O’Connor, of Texas.

Congress’ 2017 tax reform bill included a change to the ACA’s individual mandate. Originally, the individual mandate required that every American purchase health insurance (if not covered by an employer’s policy) or face a tax penalty. The 2017 tax reform bill, however, eliminated the tax penalty.

Judge O’Connor ruled that when a tax penalty was attached to the individual mandate, Congress was exercising its Constitutional taxing power. Without the tax mandate, however, O’Connor ruled that Congress was overreaching its authority.

“Individual Mandate can no longer be fairly read as an exercise of Congress’s Tax Power and is still impermissible under the Interstate Commerce Clause—meaning the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional,” said O’Connor in his opinion, adding that the individual mandate is “essential to and inseverable from the remainder of the ACA.”

Judge O’Connor’s ruling goes further than the Trump administration originally asked. Invalidation of the individual mandate and the provision that protects those with pre-existing conditions were the only provisions the Trump administration had sought to overturn.

Tim Jost, a professor at Washington and Lee University, said that (in addition to the individual mandate and the pre-existing condition provision), “O’Connor’s order would invalidate many provisions of the Medicaid program, the Medicare program and other federal laws.”

Jost added, however, “Judge O’Connor has declared the individual mandate unconstitutional and the rest of the Affordable Care Act invalid, but he has not blocked its continued operation.”

“Today’s ruling is an assault on 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions, on the 20 million Americans who rely on the ACA’s consumer protections for healthcare, on America’s faithful progress toward affordable healthcare for all Americans,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “…The ACA has already survived more than 70 unsuccessful repeal attempts and withstood scrutiny in the Supreme Court.”

California and 16 additional blue states argue that the individual mandate is still constitutional, but that even without it, the ACA could stand. The Texas federal judge’s decision on the ACA will without question be appealed.

Texas Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional | KPIX CBS SF Bay Area [2018-12-04]

Federal judge strikes down Obamacare | Fox News [2018-12-14]

Category: *45th POTUS Donald Trump

U.S. Government Greets Partial Shutdown for the Holidays

Texas Judge Rules ACA Unconstitutional