Win or lose? Shutdown resolves little, except to set up another possible showdown

It is hard to see from where we are sitting how either the Republicans or Democrats can consider themselves winners or their counterparts losers after this weekend's farce of a government shutdown.

The Democrats held out for a guarantee on DACA that was never to come, only to settle for an agreement to discuss it further.

Meanwhile, the Republicans made it quite obvious that they still can't decide amongst themselves who in their ranks are the true conservatives or whether or not they truly support the president or are just pretending to as long as he is in office.

The only real losers here were the people denied the opportunity to go to work or visit public sites over the weekend and on Monday.

Oh, and the state of New York is out several tens of thousands of dollars for paying its own money toward opening the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Sunday and Monday, but hey, it could have been worse, right?

The fact remains that the Dreamers still don't know their fate and it is doubtful that a lasting resolution will be decided by the time the bill funding the government and ending the shutdown runs out on Feb. 8.

So what we are likely to see is another showdown toward shutting down. And, if in the end all we get is another short-term resolution on DACA and no real immigration reform to follow, then neither side can claim victory because all they will have done is all they ever have done, and that's play the world's most expensive game of kick the can.

Published in Editorials on January 22, 2018 10:38 PM