Are conservatives missing their chance to hold Democrats’ feet to the fire? That’s the sneaking suspicion of the Freedom Caucus’ co-founder and first chairman, Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio.
The fact of the matter is that last Fall, in order to prevent a government shutdown, Republicans passed a short-term spending measure that extended budgetary appropriations through April of this year. The hope was that once there was a Republican president in office as well as Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, Republican priorities could be pushed through Congress without any problem.
But as Democrats under President Barack Obama found out, just because your party controls both the presidency and the two chambers of Congress doesn’t mean you can automatically get your way 100 percent of the time.
And the situation at present only serves to underscore this point. Democratic threatening, finagling and filibustering have forced President Trump to compromise on at least two of his campaign platform promises — a wall built on the U.S. border with Mexico and cutting funding for sanctuary cities.
Democrats (as well as Republican Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney) also insisted that new Republican spending on defense had to be matched with equal non-defense spending, which only increases the budget deficit when defense spending rises, as it will under Trump. Now, the next chance for Republicans to get their way regarding priorities will be closer to 2018, when House members are up for re-election.
Congressman Jordan may be a former wrestling champion, but it seems that even he was unable to grapple successfully with the Democrats (and less conservative members of his own party) in the face of their intransigence early in President Trump’s initial term. Watch as CNN’s Andrew Cuomo probes Jordan for the reasons why.
