The government shutdown threats are coming from inside the White House!

Somebody is getting just a little ahead of himself in his shiny new White House job. We last saw popular vote loser Donald Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, boasting about how he manipulates his boss into breaking his promises. Now Mulvaney is reprising his role as a Freedom Caucus maniac to agitate for a government shutdown over sanctuary cities.

Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, is pressing lawmakers to include language to restrict federal funding grants for cities that do not enforce federal immigration policies. The goal is to bring the House Freedom Caucus on board with a government funding bill, according to Capitol Hill Republicans—or at least show that the administration is courting the support of the hard-right and pushing GOP leaders to adopt Trump's priorities.

But the effort by Mulvaney, a former conservative congressman from South Carolina, threatens to disrupt bipartisan negotiations on funding the government. Democrats are already calling a request for border wall money a "poison pill" that would shut down the government. An attempt to block liberal cities from receiving federal funds if they ignore immigration guidance would similarly cause Democrats to flee. The budget bill will need Democratic votes to pass—at least eight in the Senate, but probably in the House as well.

You can take the maniac out of the House, but you can't take the Freedom Party out of the maniac.

from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2p9DeHG