Five Key Questions as a Government Shutdown Looms
the Trump administration wants to use the deadline as a point of leverage that Democrats — and at least a few Republicans — do not believe they have, raising the prospects of a shutdown that had seemed unlikely.
.. “We expect a massive increase in military spending. We expect money for border security in this bill,” Mr. Priebus said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And it ought to be. Because the president won overwhelmingly. And everyone understands the border wall was part of it.”
.. some Democrats would plainly relish the political upside of a unified Republican government ushering in Mr. Trump’s 100th day by failing to keep the lights on.
.. Mr. Mulvaney has offered a trade of sorts: $1 of subsidy payments under the Affordable Care Act — paid to insurers to lower deductibles and other costs for low-income consumers who buy plans through the law’s marketplaces — in exchange for every $1 to pay for the border wall that the president wants to build.
.. When he ran for president, Mr. Trump presented himself as a champion of coal miners, promising to put them back to work.
.. a dispute over health benefits for retired miners who were set to lose their coverage.