Ten paces, turn, and fire
by Tom Sullivan
"Dueling plans" for ending the month-long partial government shutdown reach the floor of the U.S. Senate on Thursday. Proposals from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) may both fail, the Washington Post reports:
The votes will test the abilities of McConnell and Schumer to unify their sides, and likely, to negotiate with each other afterward. In other dramatic fiscal showdowns over the past decade, the Senate has almost always been the chamber that found the bipartisan solution as the House hit roadblocks, from the Wall Street bailout of 2008 to reopening of government after the 2013 shutdown. But those were crises that predated President Trump’s mercurial presidency.The sitting president faces crashing poll numbers — as low as 34 percent approval in one poll as he hangs onto hope he can pressure Democrats into approving $5.7 billion for a border wall/barrier/fence, ill-defined and changeable by the day. Democrats oppose the wall, but will discuss increased border security once the shutdown ends.
In effect, the defeat of both measures would demonstrate in the most concrete manner yet that what both sides have been pushing for is not possible in the Senate, and that some new compromise must be forged to pass the chamber.
This is already the longest government shutdown in the history of the United States and there is no end in sight. In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break. It is unprecedented.Pistols at 10 paces may sound less risky.