The government shutdown lasted only 3 days, last Saturday, Sunday and Monday, when only essential government work got done. For most of us it was not much different than the previous weekend. Senate Democrats caused the shutdown because they wanted 800,000 nonlegal immigrants brought here as children by their illegal immigrant parents to receive legal status. Senator Schumer was the main supporter of the nonlegal immigrants, and he finally relented and voted for the temporary funding deal.

A few days later a formal proposal was submitted to legalize more than twice as many of these young folks. You might have expected Sen. Schumer and all the Democrats to be celebrating in the street. But, no. Former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, even called this plan (which would legalize almost 2 million young aliens) “racist.” That seemed odd since most of them are Mexican and I did not know Mexican was a race.

It’s not just the Democrats; a lot of Republicans don’t like it either. In fact, a similar bill of some sort has been introduced in Congress almost every year since 2001. Democrats and Republicans have kinda taken turns opposing it. It’s enough to make you suspect many prefer to keep the issue alive for political purposes instead of solving it. The stalemate may last for many years, maybe even long enough that the illegal parents will have conveniently died of natural causes.

One hang up is The Wall, and how to raise $20 Billion to pay for it. Well, I’ve got a plan. I read in the newspaper that last year Americans spent $80 Billion on Lottery tickets. So let Congress and the President pass a law that for the next 12 months all Lottery earnings go to pay for the Wall. You may say, “We don’t need $80 Billion.” You’re right, and that’s the best part. See, $60 Billion of the $80 Billion will go to the holders of the winning tickets, and that’s way better odds than they get now. With those odds, even Mexicans will be buying tickets.

President Trump will deliver his first State of the Union speech Tuesday night. Every good speaker will tell you to include only 3 or 4 key points. But he will likely feel obliged to cover 20 or 30.

Actually he should stick to only one point: the Economy. That would include improving wages and bonuses, income tax reductions, job growth, energy production, and the stock market. That’s it. Stop at 15 minutes. The opposing party always has a response after the speech. Let ‘em respond to the Economy. Don’t give journalists and TV commentators anything else to talk about. But you can bet Trump’s prepared speech will be about 45 minutes, and with his ad libs and extraneous comments, he will run over an hour.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“Our President delivered his first [State of the Union] message to Congress. You know that’s one of the things that his contract calls for. One of the few stipulated duties of the President, and that is that every once in awhile he delivers a message to Congress to tell them the “Condition of the Country.” This message, as I say, is to Congress; the rest of the country know the condition of the country, for they live in it and are a part of it. But the Senators and Congressmen, being in Washington all the time, have no idea what is going on in America. So the President has to tell ’em.” WA #371, Feb. 2, 1930

 “A president just can’t make much showing against congress.  They lay awake nights, thinking up things to be against the president on.” WA #430, March 22, 1931