Bill Scher: Republicans Can End the Government Shutdown Today

"If Republicans don’t want a bipartisan deal, they can kill the filibuster. So why aren’t they?

The longest federal government shutdown in American history is 35 days, spanning December 2018 and January 2019. Technically, it was a partial shutdown because appropriations for some agencies were approved before the beginning of Fiscal Year 2019. It is also the only government shutdown directly instigated by a President of the United States, one Donald J. Trump, who wanted to hold the government hostage until Congress agreed to give him billions for building a border wall.  

Since then, America has had 2,440 days of fully operating federal governance. (Joe Biden pitched a perfect game.) Trump is back, and the streak has ended. With zero Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations bills passed by Congress, this shutdown is total, save for essential employees. 

My bet is that this shutdown will break the 35-day record, with no partial shutdown asterisks. 

Why? Because Trump doesn’t care if the government shuts down. He has no interest in what most of the federal government does, beyond what it can do for him. Through the Office of Management and Budget, he has the power to deem certain government workers essential, which fulfills his desire to exert unilateral power. 

Democrats, all things being equal, do care about what the federal government does. But Trump is already stripping the civil service down to the studs while asserting unlimited executive powers. Democrats, for the most part, do not want to abet Trump’s agenda with passive votes for Republican spending bills, nor are they afraid of taking blame for any of the consequences of a shutdown.  

Perhaps they should be. I have already expressed my disagreements with the tactical choices by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. But Trump begins this standoff with much of the public aghast at his chaotic authoritarianism; a new New York Times poll shows majorities believe Trump has “gone too far” by pressuring media outlets, sending the National Guard into cities, and with immigration enforcement generally. Trump has been such a colossal chaos agent and has been so dismissive of bipartisan negotiations that Democrats have reason to believe he won’t escape blame for one more act of chaos, even though Democrats have complicated their preferred narrative by making their own demands regarding renewal of expiring health coverage subsidies. 

Moreover, Democratic Party favorability is already pretty low, just 33 percent in the Real Clear Politics average. A shutdown probably can’t make it go much lower and could give it a slight boost if frustrated rank-and-file Democrats are energized. Having said that, the poll number Democrats will want to keep a closer eye on is the generic congressional ballot, where they now hold a slight edge. Slippage there in reaction to a shutdown may prompt calls for surrender. Short of that, Democrats should have no problem allowing the federal government to stay closed and pinning the resulting chaos on the person tagged as the “Chaos President” before he even held the office.  

Might Schumer wobble? Some Democrats were frustrated when he shied away from the shutdown standoff in March. And Punchbowl News’s Andrew Desiderio reported on Monday that “Schumer has approached a small group of Senate Dems to see if they’re OK with short-term [spending bill] (10 days, for example), but with a caveat—assuming Trump agrees to a negotiation on [Affordable Care Act] subsidies.” Punchbowl subsequently reported that the small olive branch “drew the ire of House Democrats.” Schumer didn’t propose it when he met with Trump.  

Just as rank-and-file Democrats are pressuring Schumer to walk away from the negotiating table, Trump is doing everything possible to push him away. Following that meeting, Trump posted on his social media page a deepfake video of Schumer telling a sombrero-clad Jeffries, over a track of mariachi music, “we have no voters anymore because of our woke trans bullshit” so “if we give all these illegal aliens free health care, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us.” Republicans had some ground to stand on in arguing Democrats were instigating the shutdown by insisting on renewing expiring health coverage subsidies. Still, they sacrificed that ground by lying about what Democrats were demanding. Beyond the substantive dishonesty, attempting to humiliate Schumer only gives him a political incentive to stand his ground.  

And so does Trump, spending precious time, as the shutdown clock ticks, telling military leaders to expect deployment to American cities to fight a “war from within” in apparent violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.  

Furthermore, Democrats have an available response to Republican attempts to shift all the blame onto them: Republicans don’t need us to open the government. They can change Senate rules and suspend or eliminate the filibuster on a party-line vote. And Republicans can’t argue that they think changing the rules on a party-line vote—the so-called “nuclear option”—is a terrible violation of Senate norms because Republicans literally changed the rules on a party-line vote three weeks ago to speed confirmation of judicial nominees. If they don’t go nuclear and kill the filibuster to keep the government open, that shows how little they care about keeping it open, and how much they care about creating excuses for vilifying Democrats.

(Longtime readers of my work know I like the filibuster, so I have no ulterior motive in goading Republicans into abolishing it. But let’s get real: Senators in both parties have gone “nuclear” enough that the filibuster rule is already hanging by a thread.) 

All this is to say that we shouldn’t expect a shutdown to end anytime soon, primarily because Trump is a reckless authoritarian with no obvious interest in negotiations or in maintaining the bulk of what the federal government does, and far more interested in scurrilous political combat.? 

Source:Wikipedia with a look at U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (Republican, South Dakota)

From The Washington Monthly

As I wrote about this 10 days ago: 

"So, under The Anti-Deficiency Act, when the government shutdowns, the executive branch, under The White House and Office of Management Budget, gets to decide who is essential and who is nonessential, when it comes to the federal workforce. Meaning, who gets to show up to work, who has to stay home, who has to show up and work for free, during the shutdown. 

In case anyone who sees this, was born last night, (and if you are able to read before you even reach 1 day old, I'm fairly impressed) Donald John Trump is currently President of the United States and Russell Vought is currently the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Do you really want these two "gentlemen" in charge of what stays open and is closed, who gets to go to work, who stays home, who has to work for free, during a government shutdown? 

Mr. Vought is 1 of the chief authors of Project 2025, which is a document that lays out how a President Trump could claim and use more executive authority, then the Constitution currently gives the President of the United States. And how they could essentially get away with that. Is this who you want in charge of the government shutdown in Washington? 

At least if Congress passed a government funding bill, (whatever you actually think of the actual bill) there are laws there that the courts can protect, requiring the executive branch to spend this amount of money, with this amount of workers in place enforcing those spending requirements. But put Trump and Vought in charge, thanks to your shutdown, there's no one left in place who could even try to hold the President and OMB accountable during a shutdown... 

From The New Democrat

My colleague Kire Schneider and I have thought about the last 4-5 days (of the 2025 Schumer shutdown) about what Bill Scher is talking about here, about how Senate Republicans should simply end the shutdown and eliminate the filibuster on appropriations and omnibus spending bills, which is what is currently being blocked in the Senate, by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. 

And I don't personally know Senate Majority John Thune... never even met the man, but he's been in Congress long enough, has been in the Senate Republican Leadership long enough, he's smart enough, that it would be surprising to anyone who is familiar with him and Senate rules, to believe that he also hasn't thought about doing this himself. But to Bill Scher's question: why hasn't he already done this? Or my question: why isn't he planning on doing this? 

Bill Scher is right and I've already argued this myself and covered that 10 days ago... the President doesn't need Congressional approval to do what he wands to do as President, which is execute his tariffs on our democratic allies around the world, use the government to pressure his political and ideological opponents and protect his political allies through government power, regardless of what they have done and the evidence against them. 

If The Anti-Deficiency Act and OMB Director Russ Vought isn't enough reason to convince you of how world record breaking, politically stupid and tone death, that the Schumer shutdown is, how about the fact that the Trump Administration doesn't need to the government to be fully operational to do what they've been doing, since they came back in power in January. 

This, along with the ADA, should be game clinchers for you. Either 1 of them, you could rest your case to being opposed to the Schumer shutdown and supporting Senate Democrats votes to end debate on the Senate funding bill and to reopen the government, today. 

I get the fact that Chuck Schumer is now 75 years old and has dedicated his life to being a career politician and political leader. 44 years in Congress, 20 of those years in the Senate Democratic Leadership, are pretty good smoking guns there. And I get the fact that he doesn't want to have to run against Representative Alexandria O. Cortez in 2028, just to save his Senate seat. But this is not Chuck Schumer versus the Trump Administration. Every political decision and political tactic that he pulls as Senate Minority Leader, especially when they're public, effects his caucus, the Democratic Party, and the rest of the Federal Government. Especially the civil service, when you are talking about government shutdowns. 

I guess my message for Leader Schumer and the left-wing (to be kind) of the Democratic Party is this: the Democrats lost in 2024. That's why we have a big Orangeman in The White House, who is crushing (or certainly trying to) everyone who has opposed him before, or is trying to block him now. (To mix my metaphors here) 

And when you don't vote, or you vote for the other party, or vote for a party that in a good year, gets 1-3% of the vote, your party loses and generally loses badly. And there are real consequences to being out-of-power, like being both the opposition party and the minority party at the same time. The 2 biggest ones being accountability and not being able to set the agenda... not writing the legislation that ultimately becomes law. 

Democrats can say this is about protecting health care and the ACA subsidies all they want... this is about protecting Chuck Schumer's political career, at the expense of everyone else and appeasing the far-left of the party. Who would burn down the house to save a plant. And if you think health care is a good political issue for you... the people are with you on that 1. Why not take that to the campaign trail and make it a huge issue for yourselves for 26. That's 1 of the advantages to being the out-party: you get to make the case against the in-party, while not having to take any responsibility for when the in-party screws up... as long as you don't shut the government down!!! 

If I'm Senate Majority Leader John Thune right now, I'm calling for the nuclear option to block filibusters on Congressional appropriations bills. Which means that Senate Democrats could use that against him and Republicans in 2029, if Democrats are completely back in power then. But it would be good for the country to not have to through this anymore twice a year, it would give Congress (House & Senate) more incentive to pass their appropriations bills every year, knowing that the Senate Minority Leader won't be able to block any of them, just with his caucus. 

And the Senate nuclear option here would establish that when 1 party if elected with both The White House and Congress, that they'll be able to get their own budgets and budget agenda through Congress every year that they're in power. 

I would also be in favor of requiring that all Congressional appropriations have to be clean and can't add to the deficit, in order not to be subjected to the Senate filibuster, so this is power is not abused. As as allowing the minority party (House & Senate) to be able to offer relevant amendments and alternatives to the appropriations bills on the floor. But I doubt that's what Majority Leader Thune would pass, if he went nuclear on this. 

Chuck Schumer, who up until a month ago, still seemed like he was 1 of the best political tacticians in the entire Congress. But his gross incompetence and political selfishness, his own political self-preservation, has really angered The New Democrat here and is making us sound like Independents now. What the fuck, Chuck! (To be frank) But don't worry, we're still JFK Democrats.

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