MCINTOSH: The Best Part Of A Shutdown Isn’t A Wall — It’s Teaching The GOP Not To Cower In Fear

Republicans who care about liberty should be thankful that President Trump is being tough during the shutdown. Sure, it’s messy. And there’s a “debate” about border security, but what is really going on is a power play between Republican who run the government and control the Senate and Nancy Pelosi’s increasingly socialist Democrat House. The best thing to come out of the president’s willingness to fight is that weak-kneed Republicans will learn not to cower in fear when Democrats threaten a shutdown.

The debate over whether or not to fund $5.7 billion for President Trump’s wall and border security measures is a topline issue. But there’s an elephant in the room, and it’s bigger than any proposed wall. Appropriators of both parties routinely use “shutdown” fears to jam through the over $4 trillion behemoth that is federal government spending each year. While it may seem hard to imagine today, the quarter of the federal government that has been shuttered since December will eventually re-open. And when it does, the question is will we be left with the same systemic problem we started out with: a bloated government that spends without regard to our nation’s economic future.

Club for Growth does not take positions on immigration, but we do advance free-market economic policies. And that entails supporting policies that reduce the size and scope of the federal government in order to secure economic prosperity for our children and future generations of Americans. President Trump deserves much credit for advancing that cause and for all its work rolling back the regulatory monstrosity that was the Obama administration’s nanny state.

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