The federal shutdown is dragging into its fourth week with no end in sight. TSA workers are not getting paid for screening airport passengers’ bags for contraband. National parks are asking tourists for donations. Prospective homebuyers are struggling to secure flood insurance. Start-ups are idling, figuring out if they can go public.
As much of America stalls and sputters, President Donald Trump is forging ahead on a plan to remake the government’s budget without Congress’s assent. His administration has used the shutdown as a pretext to withhold billions of dollars from scores of projects: a subway line in Manhattan, a utility microgrid in Oahu. The White House has diverted anti-terrorism money to red states and canceled clean-energy projects in blue states. Trump’s goal is not only to make the government smaller again but also to alter the country’s economic geography, pushing Democratic regions to falter and Republican ones to flourish.
None of this is subtle.
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