And here we are.
Senate Democrats are willing to drop their demand that relief for Dreamers be tied to any long-term budget agreement — a potential boost for spending talks, but one that could face opposition from their House counterparts.
The shift comes in response to the deal struck between Senate leaders Monday to reopen the government and begin debate on an immigration bill next month. Meanwhile, budget negotiators are expressing optimism that a two-year agreement to lift stiff caps on defense and domestic spending is increasingly within reach.
“We’re viewing [immigration and spending] on separate terms because they are on separate paths,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Tuesday.
Shutdown theater is senseless. And when it fails, it tends to taint the cause attached to it.
On one level, it's a sensible strategic move by the Dems. But the really sensible move would have been to avoid the shutdown. Schumer and Co. gambled that they could excite the base and score some concessions from the Republicans. They proved to be badly wrong on both points. Retreat was sensible, but unpopular. It's now raising the distinct possibility of the left going after Senate Dems. That would tactically be a disaster, but winning parties have a history of such disasters. And the Dems have their own history of counting their polling chickens before they hatch.
Senator Schumer tried to keep both the radical left and the establishment happy. He ended up infuriating both.