While in 1995, working for President Clinton, we took a moral stand against Newt Gingrich in opposing a budget that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare, Medicaid, education and the environment, we eventually settled on a balanced budget consistent with our values.

The idea that a few billion dollars for more walls, fences and border security rises to that moral level is overdone, especially since the Democrats supported nearly 600 miles of barriers across California not long ago. This is about politics, not policy. About the partisan bases, not the swing voters. And everybody knows it.

The Democrats should – and still can – get their shopping cart out and fill it with things they want like DACA work permits and turn this lose/lose stalemate into a win/win. Trump may preen, but the Democrats will be the real winners if they are seen as the ones who break the log jams and move the country forward.