Nicholas
Biddle during the first Jackson administration devised what he thought was the
perfect plan for ensuring Congress rechartered the Second National Bank of the
United States, which he directed. Although
the Bank’s charter was not due to expire until 1836, Biddle asked his
Congressional supporters to seek a recharter in 1832. Biddle and his political allies were
confident that Jackson would not dare to make the bank an issue in the forthcoming
presidential election. If Jackson vetoed
the bill, they thought, a proponent of the bank would certainly become the next
president of the United States. This was
not a big success. Jackson did veto the
bank bill and then rode that veto to an overwhelming victory in the 1832
presidential election.
Biddle’s
strategy provides the foundation for a fair compromise between Democrats and
Republicans that could resolve the contemporary government shutdown. Congress should agree on a bill that allocates
funding for Trump's proposed wall between the United States and Mexico, but attach two conditions to that
funding. First, no money can be spent
until after inauguration day 2021.
Second, any spending on the wall after inauguration day 2021 is entirely
discretionary. If the president does not
believe the wall good policy, the president need not spend a cent. The end result will be to make the 2020
presidential election analogous to the 1832 presidential election. By passing the Nicholas Biddle Barrier Law, Congress will make the next presidential election a referendum
on whether we should build a wall to keep out illegal immigrants.
Trump can hardly claim necessity to build a wall today, given that two years have already passed since his first promise to build that barrier. Besides if delay is the issue, Congress can always throw in a few more dollars to spend up the process after 2021. And as was the case with the bank veto, certainly a president with a mandate is in far better position to build or not build a wall than a president performing a solo
I
suspect every Democrat running for President will be happy to campaign on a
platform opposing spending any of the funds set aside for the wall. I suspect a great many Republicans,
particularly in competitive states or districts, will blanch at the idea of
making the 2020 election a referendum on the wall. The Biddle compromise will thus force crucial
Republicans either to acknowledge publicly that they oppose the wall or force
them to run on an issue likely to benefit Democrats in the
present electoral cycle.