Tag: Bipartisan Policy Center

Public opinion polls show more Americans blame President Donald Trump than opposition Democrats at the moment, and to some the standoff is already serving as a likely blueprint for the 2020 presidential election battle. "Trump is losing on this, Congress is losing on this, and then federal workers, who are without pay, are losing on this," said Jim Kessler of Third Way, a center-left public advocacy group in Washington. Wall or bust President Trump remains adamant about funding for a wall along the southern border, a key campaign promise from 2016. On Thursday, the Senate will vote on competing proposals to end the shutdown, one from the White House and Republicans, the other from Democrats. "We, the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol and other folks that make this country safe and secure, we don't get that much money; but, we should be paid for it," Gosman told reporters. "Public opinion polls, I think, are more against the president than against the Democrats," said Fortier. A new poll Wednesday from Morning Consult/POLITICO found that 54 percent blamed President Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown, while 35 percent blamed congressional Democrats. Overall, the president's approval rating has suffered during the shutdown, dropping from an average of around 43 percent last month to around 40 percent this year. A new CBS poll also found that by a margin of 71 to 28 percent, voters believe that money for a border wall is not worth shutting down the government. "And both sides will have to give something.

Included in the package was language establishing a new Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform. Success will depend, in part, on just how much the panel tries to tackle. Consider first the motivations of individual rank-and-file members of both the House and Senate. Historically, floor amendments to spending bills have represented an important way members are able to exert influence on spending measures. Rank-and-file members, then, may be facing competing incentives: a desire to have a predictable process on one hand, and an incentive to use the process to achieve certain goals on the other. Of the sixteen members of the JSC, seven sit on either the House or Senate Appropriations Committees, and six are members of the House or Senate Budget Committees. sits on both the House Budget and House Appropriations.) The potential for jurisdictional conflict is not a new hurdle for budget process reform. If the JSC is to pursue reform ideas that would affect the current committee balance of power, such as strengthening the Budget Committees, it will need to navigate these competing incentives. As the JSC process gets under way, there are indications that both the broader budget reform community and panel members themselves are taking seriously these questions of incentives.