Not only are President Donald Trump and Republican leadership clearly not on the same page, they can't even shoot at each other straight, The Wall Street Journal wrote in its editorial.
The latest debacle — Trump siding with Democratic leadership on a short-term deal to raise the debt ceiling — underscores "the Republican inability to govern," the Journal wrote.
What House Speaker Paul Ryan rightly blasted as a "disgraceful" and "unworkable" idea out of Democratic leadership was inexplicably accepted by the president just scant hours later, handing all the leverage to the other party.
In doing so, Trump railroaded Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his own Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, all of whom wanted to attach a long-term debt ceiling increase to the Hurricane Harvey relief package and be done with it.
Now, Republicans need to do it all over again in December.
"Republicans will now have to take at least two difficult votes to raise the debt ceiling, while Democratic leverage will increase when the day of reckoning comes. The chances of a government shutdown in December have now risen sharply, or at least they have if Mr. Trump wants to pass something with more than a few Republican votes," the Journal wrote.
And how did Republicans get here in the first place? The same old factions, the same divisions that derail the GOP time and time again. The most recent example — Republicans' failure to repeal Obamacare.
"The majority party has to raise the debt ceiling whether it likes it or not. The smart GOP play was to attach a long-term debt increase to some other must-pass legislation and get it over with," wrote the Journal.
Read more at:
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/donald-trump-debt-deal-democrats-underscores/2017/09/07/id/812133/
