EXTRA: Trump could have learned lessons from Rauner example in Illinois

I’m not getting all worked up with excitement at the notion that the “shutdown” of federal government came to an end Friday at 35 days – largely because I’ve seen just how stupid political stubbornness can be in my home state of Illinois.

TRUMP: Losing? Or plotting new strategy?

For the deal President Donald Trump is agreeing to is that he’ll sign off on a measure that re-opens the federal government for three weeks, with a congressional committee supposedly studying the “border wall” issue to come up with a compromise plan that will allow for money to erect Trump – the Wall along the U.S./Mexico border.

HONESTLY, I COULD easily envision that three weeks from how, nothing will change, the “shutdown” will resume and everyone will claim that everybody else is to blame for what could become the months-on-end cessation of the federal government.

In fact, I wonder if this three-week reopening of the federal government is nothing more than a conniving plot by Trump to create circumstances that will allow him to claim he’s not to blame. Because it’s pretty obvious that just about everybody IS blaming The Donald for our government failing to live up to its obligations.

Sort of like a “do-over” to try to shift blame to “da Dems.” While letting Trump give his “State of the Union” address Tuesday in the Capitol as intended.

Maybe it’s because the memory of Bruce Rauner as Illinois governor is still so fresh in the minds that I recall how he would up taking blame for the just over two full years of inactivity by Illinois state government.

RAUNER: Trump could learn from Bruce's defeat

EVEN THOUGH GOING through the news “clips” produces stories early on in that shutdown with Rauner insisting he’d be the political victor of any such shutdown.

The circumstances are way too similar.

Rauner had as his crusade that was more important to him than the daily operations of state government his so-called “reforms,” which really were nothing more than measures meant to undermine the influence of organized labor within state government.

While Trump wants to build the barrier he claims will keep all the foreigners from being able to enter the country – even though anyone with sense realizes the foreigners enter the U.S. through airports or the U.S./Canada border – which is must more easily passable than the desert terrain that separates U.S. from Mexico.

PELOSI: The victor? Or just a delay?

RAUNER’S STATE SHUTDOWN resulted when the governor wouldn’t sign off on a state budget without the so-called reforms being included – even though it really was a completely separate issue from daily governance.

Just like Trump’s border barricades really ought to be done separately from the daily operations of the federal government.

But several months passed in Illinois when our officials approved a budget that would supposedly fund the state for six months – thereby giving time for us all to talk and reach compromise.

Which would have worked; if only we had officials inclined to want to negotiate in good faith. All that happened was six months later, the state shut down again – and that ultimately resulted in the combined shutdown of just over two full years for Illinois.

WHICH RESULTED IN the state developing much more severe financial issues and debt that it’s going to take our state years, if not decades, to cope with. I can really, truly see the same situation developing at the federal government level.

BUTTIGIEG: Could he be '20 beneficiary?

Are we truly headed for a situation that can only be resolved by the 2020 political demise of Donald Trump – with the voters taking it upon themselves to be so disgusted that they “dump Trump?” Or 2024, if it turns out the Democratic Party becomes too inept to put forth a credible presidential challenger (always a political reality).

It’s too bad that Trump couldn’t study our situation and try to learn from it for the betterment of the American people.

Then again, Trump is enough of an egomaniac to think he has nothing he could learn from anybody – which is the real reason that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has come out looking like a political genius in recent weeks. With The Donald looking like little more than a chump!

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