Last night, the Senate passed its continuing resolution to fund the government through the holidays and into the new year.
But voices on both sides of the contentious process are reluctant to call it a win.
For the president, who held budget making hostage to the idea of $5 billion for a border wall, the continuing resolution is essentially folding his cards.
For legislators, it’s a short-term solution to something that they would like to see funded in a more long-term way.
“This is a missed opportunity to pass full-year funding bills now,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement, according to CNN reporting today. “However, Democrats will be ready to fully, responsibly fund our government in January, and we will support this continuing resolution.”
The continuing resolution still has to pass through the house and get signed by the president.
Senate majority whip John Cornyn, however, thinks we can be confident that the president will sign what’s put in front of him.
“He will sign a clean CR,” Cornyn told CNN.
We don’t know exactly what Cornyn is basing that on, but it makes sense that the embattled White House would sign the short-term spending bill rather than bucking the trend and setting off another firestorm over the budget making process.
White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders has already said that the president can find some other way to build his wall, a solution that many experts on both sides of the aisle have derided as ineffective and a waste of money.
So if we have avoided the government shutdown, why are the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average tanking?
We see the S&P 500 dipping under $2500 for the first time since September of last year. The Dow Jones is down to just over $23,000 another low water mark.
Actually, analysts have begun to untether stock prices from government shutdown news, and instead tie it to the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates for the seventh time since Trump took office.
Today we have definite news that the interest rate will be raised again, although policymakers at the Fed tried to soften the news by saying they may not have to raise as much next year.
Again, we have the president putting his thumb on the scale trying to urge the independent board not to raise interest rates.
“I hope the people over at the Fed will read today’s Wall Street Journal Editorial before they make yet another mistake,” Trump wrote in a Tweet Dec. 18. “Also, don’t let the market become any more illiquid than it already is. Stop with the 50 B’s. Feel the market, don’t just go by meaningless numbers. Good luck!”
If it seems like a toxic stew of a no-win economy so it may be time to vote with your wallet and put some cash on the sidelines in order to buy in a fire sale when the whole thing eventually goes sideways.
