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“The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a stopgap bill to keep federal agencies funded past Friday, averting a partial shutdown beginning this weekend even as President Donald Trump dramatically cuts the government. The bill passed in a nearly party-line 217-213 vote, with one Republican voting no and one Democrat yes…
“The continuing resolution, which largely keeps the government funded at its current level through September 30, would need to be passed by the Republican-majority Senate and signed by Trump into law by Friday to avoid a shutdown.” Reuters
“Top U.S. Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer on Thursday said he would vote to advance [the] Republican stopgap funding bill, signaling that his party would provide the votes to avert a government shutdown. ‘I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down,’ he said in a speech to the Senate.” Reuters
Both sides agree that the Democrats have no good options:
“Democrats have the terrible choice of enabling a Republican-engineered government shutdown or enacting a bill that preserves the DOGE-OMB option of gutting rather than shutting the government… If Senate Democrats (or at least enough of them) do choose the easy way out by refusing to stand in the way of the CR locomotive, they must live with the realization that they’ve given up the one bit of leverage they had this year…
“From here on out, Republicans intend to enact Trump’s legislative agenda via a giant budget reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered and which will exclude Democrats from having any say over the size, shape, and purpose of the federal government. As DOGE continues to abolish and slash programs and fire federal workers, and as OMB picks and chooses which appropriations it will actually make available, Democrats can only hope the federal courts intervene or Republicans somehow fall into disarray.”
Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine
“Democrats had two choices, and neither one was good: Option 1: Filibuster the resolution and shut down the government, handing Russ Vought—the OMB director and a fiscal conservative who will take a machete to government spending with a mad grin on his face (probably)—full control over what spending gets prioritized…
“Option 2: Pass the CR and keep the government open, but in doing so, legitimize the spending cuts that Republicans have been working toward all along (and, more importantly, legitimizing Elon Musk's work)…
“They chose the latter, because between letting [OMB Director Russ] Vought run wild in a shutdown or dealing with the political fallout of conceding to Republicans, they went with what they saw as the lesser of two evils. But make no mistake—this was a trap, and Chuck Schumer knows it.”
Joe Cunningham, RedState
Other opinions below.
“A shutdown only works as a point of leverage if Trump et al feel pressure to reopen the government. If they plan to destroy the government or are content to let the government stay closed for as long as possible, the plan is useless… Having said all that, Democrats shouldn’t be so scared of the politics…
“Democrats could win [in the court of public opinion] if they pick a specific and popular issue to fight over — protecting the Department of Education, stopping the tariffs, restoring food safety funding, reversing the cuts to cancer research, or funding veterans’ health organizations. They cannot make the fight about Congressional prerogatives, the power of the purse, or oppose all of the cuts…
“We can’t once again find ourselves the defenders of a broken status quo. We have to be smart, specific, courageous and relentlessly communicate our message on every forum and platform… Some fights are worth having. If Trump and Musk are as dangerous as we say, then it’s hard to justify taking a pass on the one moment of true leverage.”
Dan Pfeiffer, Message Box News
Others argue, “Shutting the government down to halt DOGE [does not] not make sense on a number of levels: a) If the problem with DOGE is they are laying off workers and curtailing programs that are vital and important, a shutdown also does those things! b) Under the circumstances of an appropriations lapse, Trump and Musk can just furlough 100 percent of the federal workers they would like to lay off and declare whoever they don’t want to lay off ‘essential,’ and they’ve already achieved their endgame…
“c) Because the federal workers at the epicenter of the pushback against DOGE would all be either furloughed or else working without pay, pressure to cave to Trump would soon be coming from the very people Democrats are trying to help…
“Lots of people are engaging in cheap position taking in favor of a ‘no’ vote on cloture, but neither House Democrats nor the people voting ‘no’ in the Senate nor the people getting mad on Twitter have an actual strategy for getting what the base wants out of this.”
Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring
“[Democrats have] spent most of the last 14 years arguing that Republicans were government-hating meanies who acted like terrorists by trying to shut it down. They’ve spent most of the past two months arguing to voters and courts that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) were doing incalculable damage by even temporary pauses in government payments…
“Abruptly deciding to become the ‘you don’t need the government for a while’ party will sound implausible coming from them… [Moreover, Trump] is nothing if not able to draw attention to his own blunt message. He’d love to adopt the mantle of the guy who just wants to keep things open for business. Democrats, for their part, haven’t even begun the heavy work of explaining to voters succinctly what they are demanding as a condition of a deal.”
Dan McLaughlin, The Telegraph
“It was only yesterday that Senate Dems held a lunch meeting (which reportedly included some shouting) and came out of the room announcing they would not vote to move the House CR forward in the Senate but would instead play chicken with a government shutdown…
“So ask yourself: What has changed in the last 24-hours? The answer is nothing… The looming shutdown Schumer says convinced him to choose the least bad option today was looming just the same yesterday. If Dems had never come out opposing this in the first place the walk back today wouldn't be so painful. Democrats somehow managed to be both Charlie Brown charging at the football and Lucy pulling it away. They set up their own public failure.”
John Sexton, Hot Air
“Government shutdowns end. And when they end, voters tend to cast blame for them on the party that wanted the shutdown in the first place (rationally enough). In 2018–2019, that was Donald Trump. This time around, it is without question the Democratic Party…
“And because the Democrats’ 47-seat minority in the Senate lacks much in the way of political leverage, it’s unlikely that the shutdown [would] end on their preferred terms.”
Noah Rothman, National Review
