NEWT GINGRICH: Chuck Schumer’s Shutdown Strategy

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has a real problem. People are realizing that the extended government shutdown is his own deliberate, cynical strategy.

The Democrats and the propaganda media desperately want Americans to blame President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans for the shutdown. But the facts are simply in their way. The House Republicans did their job on Sept. 19.

They passed a clean budget resolution to keep the government open without increasing spending. There were no new policy issues. There were no so-called poison pills to cost Democratic votes. There was no clever maneuvering. It was a simple, clean resolution – specifically designed to avoid drama and fund the federal government while the Congress and the President negotiate next year’s funding.

Further, this was a normal move. Simple, clean continuing resolutions have been used by Democratic-and Republican-led Congresses and presidents for many years.

Unfortunately, for the country – and especially government employees – Schumer saw this as an opportunity to hold the entire country hostage to prove Democrats could get a supposed win.

In a Punchbowl News interview, Schumer was arrogantly open about this manipulative calculation:

“Even the threat of shutting things — ‘We’re gonna close this, we’re gonna close that.’ It’s at least as negative on them as it is on us. I think more so on them,” Schumer said.

With the government closed, programs getting suspended, and military, air traffic controllers, and others being forced to work without pay, Schumer said, “Every Day gets better for us.”

Republican Senate Whip John Barrasso clearly accessed Schumer’s shutdown strategy:

“They are choosing politics over the paychecks of the American working men and women who protect our nation. And this weakness defines today’s Democrat Party. They’re radical, extreme, dangerous, scary, and they are out of touch.”