Senate Democrats are toying with shutting down the government on Friday. They think they might get a win out of that, but they’re not counting on who’s in charge of what a shutdown means. Just as with their antics at the congressional address last week, they are cruising for trouble.
House Republicans narrowly passed a clean funding bill Tuesday night that keeps spending about the same into the fall and successfully passes that political time bomb on to the Senate. When they were done, they promptly left town, having already canceled Wednesday’s planned votes. This is about as strong a signal the lower chamber can send that it’s done what it can and will not be considering any tweaks or changes senators want to introduce.
It’s been a while now, but for those stuck in the swamp long enough, the 2013 shutdown remains a vivid memory of just how petty and political a president can get.
It’s a message to Democrats as much as to Republicans. For obvious reasons, Democrats don’t want to fund the president’s government without promises that he’ll curtail Elon Musk and the Departments of Government Efficiency’s cuts to the executive branch. Democrats are tired of losing and see a vote that requires seven or more Democrats to pass as their first real leverage beyond waving signs (and canes). It’s not the leverage they think it is.
Continuing resolutions are the bane of conservative Republicans everywhere. Typically, they are the physical manifestation of a Congress unwilling to restrain government and unable to effectively govern. As such, they are typically passed by Democrats with Republicans playing a supporting role.
This time, however, the CR is more a sensible confession that Republicans lack the majority needed for serious changes to spending and, in the meantime, need to keep the lights on for the most revolutionary administration in decades. This means the roles have switched.
While D.C. is no stranger to shutdowns, they usually come from the right flank of the GOP. That’s turned on its head this time too, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the ranking Democrats on major committees openly musing on a shutdown’s power to disrupt Musk’s cuts to the government. But is that even the case?
It’s been a while now, but for those stuck in the swamp long enough, the 2013 shutdown remains a vivid memory of just how petty and political a president can get when the opposition shuts down federal funding. During those 16 days, Barack Obama wrote the book on hurting the American people (and spent money to do so).
Departments claimed they could no longer power their websites but were able to set up
new websites explaining this to the taxpayer. First lady Michelle Obama even stopped tweeting, citing “Congress’ failure to pass legislation to fund the government.”
The National Park Service closed the roads to national parks, including scenic drives that had private restaurants and businesses on them. They set up barriers (which cost money) to try to deter World War II veterans from visiting their own memorial on the National Mall. The old vets tore down the barriers.
They sent park rangers down to Georgetown’s Key Bridge Boathouse, where people rent kayaks, and told them it was unsafe to continue operating until the rangers had funding again. One employee told me it was the first park ranger he’d seen down there in years.
They taped off a box in D.C.’s Lincoln Park where locals would leave old books for passersby to grab. They tried to stop children from playing on a little turtle sculpture in nearby Eastern Market. They removed the handles from water pumps bicyclists and hikers used on the C&O Canal trail. They tried to rope off the parking lots for Mount Vernon, before the Ladies of Mount Vernon informed them it was privately funded land and not even under the National Park Service’s authority or supervision.
Every day, the president and other top Democrats would take to the podium to decry Republicans as arsonists and terrorists.
You won’t see this kind of action from the current administration, which worked hard during a shutdown in the first Trump presidency to keep things operating when the money dried up.
You will, however, see cuts to things Democrats don’t want cut. The point man for funding during a government shutdown is Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, a strong proponent of limited government and a chief architect of cutting fat and fraud. Vought and a team of lawyers will largely be calling the shots, and Democrats are already mad about that before he has the authority of legal shutdown precedents to bolster his planned cuts.
As one ranking official from the first administration’s OMB told the Beltway Brief, “Heads, we win. Tails, they lose.”
Or as President Trump might tell Schumer: “You have no cards.”
Blaze News: Senate Democrats in the hot seat as government shutdown looms
Ben Domenech:‘If the government shuts down … you’ll find out, and it’s going to be a lot of fun’
The Daily Caller News Foundation, October 2013: Seven stupid things the government spent money on during the shutdown
The Washington Post, September 2013:Sorry, Chris Matthews: Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan were terrible at averting shutdowns
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