Jan 20, 2019 2 min read

Judging from the Jan. 14 Opinion page, there is an effort to cast the shutdown situation as one for which Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible. This is not true.

From the beginning of this entire “wall” chimera, it has been a Donald Trump notion. As to its financing, he was quite clear. “Mexico will pay for it.” He said this repeatedly, loudly and unequivocally. He led cheers of it, a couple of hundred times, to gin up his audiences.

Then, when Mexico quite reasonably demurred to cough up the money, he turned to the American taxpayers, via Congress, and demanded billions of dollars of AMERICAN money for it. Congress ALSO demurred, and Trump said that in order to get the money, he would be proud to shut down the government, and that he wouldn’t blame the Democrats for doing so. He said this on national television, for all to see and hear.

Trump subsequently DID shut down part of the federal government, and promptly blamed the Democrats, claiming that it was their fault for not giving him what he sought.

Then, somehow, the situation was framed by Trump and Republicans as “Democrats favor open borders.” That is not true, and has never been true. Further, actual illegal crossings are way down from years ago. Beyond that, people seeking asylum have every right to do so. Even beyond that, the largest number of “illegals” in the United States are people who entered on legal visas, and overstayed them; the majority of contraband comes in through legal ports.

This contretemps is not the Democrats’ fault: the circumstances of it were set up by Trump, enabled by Sen. Mitch McConnell, and far from being a “pox on both your houses” situation, it carries Trump’s DNA: It is his baby.

It’s not up to Congress to pay child support.

Carole McIntyre

Waynesburg