President Donald Trump 2018 State of the Union
Cloud of government shutdown hangs over State of the Union
Contributed By:The 411 News
Ahh Houston ... I think we've had a problem
With one government shutdown just ended and the possibility of another looming in less than 2 weeks, President Donald Trump will step into the U.S. House of Representatives chamber Tuesday to deliver his 2019 State of the Union Address.
The speech to both houses of Congress and the nation is the president’s opportunity to reflect on the policies and positions of his administration over the past year. It’s a moment to make promises for the coming year and even set long-term goals.
The nation’s economy is good and unemployment is at a record low in the middle of President Trump’s first term. Re-election is on the horizon in 2020 and already a record number of Democrats have entered the ring to challenge him. Many in the Democratic Party want to impeach him.
And the last and looming government shutdowns hangs like a cloud over the speech. When President Trump demanded and didn’t get $5.7 billion at the end of 2018 to build a wall along the southern border from Congress, he refused to sign funding for several government agencies. He relented after more than a month later into the partial government shutdown, approving funding with a warning. “If the Congress doesn’t come up with funding for the wall by February 15, I will shut the government down again.”
Trump’s failure to set a legislative path for the border wall, a presidential campaign promise, when his party owned the presidency and majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House for the last two years erupted into the crisis of the government shutdown. The shutdown ended when Republican congressional leaders told the president his shutdown wasn’t working, that the disruption in government services was hurting the nation and the Republican Party.
The joint session on Tuesday night will be different from the president’s last two State of the Union addresses. Then the Republicans held the majority in the House. Now the House has a Democratic majority and does not accept Trump’s claim that the Democrats are to blame for the wall not being built.
Story Posted:02/05/2019
|
