Connelly: Wash. lawmakers respond to Trump tweet about gov't shutdown
President Trump, in an angry tweeting mood, said Tuesday that the United States needs "a good shutdown" of the federal government this fall to force a partisan battle to get his way over proposed spending levels.
The President tweeted as Congress worked to clear a spending package for the remainder of this fiscal year, which doesn't include money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall, and does continue programs marked for extinction, such as our Puget Sound cleanup.
Washington lawmakers were aghast that Trump would welcome another partial shutdown of the federal government.
"The President should think before he tweets," said Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., who stationed himself at the entrance to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton when Republicans forced a partial shutdown under President Obama.
"Because a little bit of thought would help him conclude that the last shutdown was incredibly damaging. It created disruption not just for national parks and Navy installations, but for private industry, too. It led to an economic loss of $24 billion."
The federal government is a big presence in the Evergreen State. The presence includes big military bases (Fairchild AFB in Spokane, Lewis McChord, Everett Navy Base), and big projects (Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Irrigation).
The state's three national parks, already understaffed, generate recreation dollars, as do national forests and national recreation areas.
The cleanup of radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington is the world's biggest environmental restoration project.
Hanford is getting $2.3 billion in the pending bipartisan budget accord. The cleanup suffered substantial work interruptions during the last shutdown.
"Every year it's an uphill battle to make sure the federal government follows through on its moral and legal commitment to clean up Hanford," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. "But I'm already on guard for next year."
The President's messages on Twitter come at a time when Trump is angry at failures to roll back the Affordable Care Act, and to put his budget priorities -- and proposed huge cuts in environmental and social programs -- in place.
But the Twitter threat appeared to be more than just another case of Trump bloviating in the early morning.
Office of Management and Budget director Mike Mulvany told reporters in Washington, "We might need a shutdown at some point" because "Washington needs to be fixed."
The office of Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., the Puget Sound area's lone Republican House member, said Reichert had no statement on the Trump tweets.
Trump appeared to be telling the Senate to change its rules, which essentially require 60 votes to approve a budget agreement. Democrats hold 48 seats in the 100-member Senate.
The result has been negotiation, such as an agreement worked out by Murray, then chair of the Senate Budget Committee, and House Ways and Means Committee Chair (now House Speaker) Paul Ryan.
Trump didn't like that, tweeting:
"Either elect more Republican Senators in 2018, or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good shutdown in September to fix mess."
U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., a former senior Microsoft executive, reacted by saying: "It's incredibly irresponsible and dangerous for the President to call for a government shutdown."
"If we learned anything from the last Republican shutdown, constituents suffer the most whether it's not being able to contact the Social Security Administration or visiting a National Park. The American people deserve a functioning government in the very least rather than budgeting from one manufactured crisis to another."
Trump has been known to bend to reality after his tweets. But the 45th President has shown cobra-like tendencies when he is frustrated or his ego bruised: He will strike at anything.
As to the "good shutdown," Rep. Denny Heck, D-Wash., another lawmaker with a business background, opined: "It's just another painful example of the President shooting from the hip."
By: Joel Connelly
Source: SeattlePI