Senate Democrats seem intent on shutting the federal government down next Tuesday. They are, because they expect Republicans to get the blame for it; they believe this because history has repeatedly shown Republicans being blamed. However, this time Democrats may be overestimating their leverage.
The current fiscal impasse stands like this: The House has passed a short-term funding bill to keep the federal government’s day-to-day operations running through November 21. This legislation now sits in the Senate, where Democrats refuse to allow it to come to a vote.
Washington rarely follows its official funding procedure of passing twelve separate appropriations bills through both chambers and onto the president’s desk before the Oct. 1 start of the next fiscal year. So, the scramble to pass what are commonly referred to as “CRs” (continuing resolutions) has become commonplace. Everyone complains about it, but everyone grudgingly participates in it; life goes on in Washington and the lights stay on in the federal government. Were it not for breathless reporting, few outside of Washington would be aware that this recurring “high drama” of racing to get bills passed and signed before the deadline has even transpired.
Inevitably, one party will see the opportunity to use this funding deadline for political leverage. Back in 1990, Democrats saw the chance to get President George H.W. Bush to break his no “new taxes” 1988 campaign pledge. In 1995 and 1996, Republicans perceived chances to get President Bill Clinton to agree to spending cuts to quickly balance the budget. There have been several such attempts since these, but always one overriding outcome: Republicans get blamed for shutdowns.
In the current shutdown showdown, Senate Democrats are using a filibuster to try and force Republicans to further underwrite high Obamacare subsidies (which will soon return to their pre-pandemic levels and make participants pay closer to what this poorly constructed program really costs) and get rid of the Medicaid savings that Republicans included in the recently passed OBBB.
Democrats are defiant and confident because history tells them to be.
First, Democrats know they are playing with a stacked deck. The establishment media is controlled by Democrats and will—as they always do—paint Republicans as heartless villains who close national parks and throw elderly into the street.
Second, because Democrats and liberals like Big Government, they will howl loudest and longest, giving the establishment media plenty to cover.
Third, government spending—even in Washington’s bloated behemoth budget—still goes to concentrated groups, while those benefiting from the government spending less are taxpayers and coming generations who would otherwise have to foot the bill. In a fight between “concentrated” and “defused,” concentrated wins, because they receive proportionally more from winning than defused gets from winning.
In short: “The stuck pig squeals the loudest” and Democrats will be the “stuck pig.”
So, if we already know the outcome, why be interested in the tedious pageant’s replaying? Because this time, there is reason to believe it could be different.
For one thing, Democrats somehow see shutting down the government as leverage against a group that has been—much to Democrats’ dismay—shutting down parts of the government. DOGE has been doing piecemeal what Democrats are threatening to do wholesale. There is a mystifying logic here: At best it’s cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Another reason is that Senate Democrats just “out thunk” themselves when it comes to confirming nominations. After slow-walking Trump nominees by the score, they pushed Republicans into disabling their means for obstruction. Republicans went back to the 2013 precedent (established by Senate Majority Leader and Democrat Harry Reid) for circumventing filibusters of presidential nominees. Republicans took 2013’s Democrat precedent and altered it to allow them to approve presidential nominees in large groups.
What changes to the filibuster could Republicans now devise for spending bills? Additionally, there was no particular hue and cry nationally when Republicans just did this for presidential nominees. Is there a bigger market for outrage over the inside baseball of CRs and federal spending than over nominees in a climate still defined by a political assassination?
Also, Democrats’ current position is curious procedurally. The short-term spending bill has already passed the House. The Senate will pass the bill if allowed to vote. And President Trump will sign the bill if the Senate passes it. Many Democrats have already called for, and promised to, end the filibuster, if they are ever in charge again. Do Democrats want to put their opponents into a situation that gives Republicans that advantage now?
Further, on a straight vote in the Senate, Democrats’ spending alternative would lose, because Democrats are in the minority and don’t have the votes. If their bill somehow passed the Senate, it would not pass in the House, because Democrats are the minority there too. And if the Senate Democrats’ bill somehow cleared Congress, it would be vetoed by President Trump. So, Democrats are asking to receive from Republicans what they cannot achieve on their own.
Virtually every year, Washington goes through this threatened shutdown charade. It has long since become a yawner to the rest of America, because every year it is somehow resolved and no one outside of Washington knows or cares how it was.
Picking a fight without control anywhere in Washinton is dubious. Doing so to force more government spending, when over the past four years the Democrats’ administration ran deficits totaling $7.5 trillion, is more dubious still.
Dying on a prominent hill for a prominent cause is one thing. Dying on an obscure hill for a cause no one outside of Washington knows about—and in a process no one outside Washington cares about—is another.
If ever there was a time for Republicans to break their shutdown losing streak it is now. And if ever there was a group to do it for them, it is today’s Democrats.