Congress faces a midnight Friday deadline to fund the government or cease operations for non-essential work and services. The House voted 217-213 Tuesday to continue current spending levels – the Joe Biden levels – through September. They would immediately begin work to bring “regular order” – debate for each spending bill – to the process for Fiscal Year 2026.
President Donald Trump encouraged the House CR, so much so that he threatened to “lead the charge” to primary the only Republican to vote against it, Kentuckian Thomas Massie.
Now the U.S. waits on the Senate. Schumer holds the ball and tries to claim the moral high ground too, though it’s the House that has moved ahead with its plan to fund the government.
Democrats prefer a one-month CR and more time to negotiate, Schumer says. He blasts the House bill as too “partisan” to work with and says his party would back a “clean” CR that makes no changes to current programs or policies.
Schumer’s one-month solution suggests that Congress would be able to agree on all 12 appropriations bills within that period of time. If not, another CR fight would flame up.
“Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR. Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11th CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass. We should vote on that,” he said.
But are the Democrats united on this as Schumer says? Suzanne Bowdey, the editorial director at The Washington Stand, isn’t so sure.
“Obviously there is some concern that maybe all the Democrats won't hold together on this, and honestly, I'm not sure what they gain from it. This has become a game of chicken,” she said on Washington Watch Wednesday.
“I don’t know what the Democrats think they'll be able to accomplish. The American people overwhelmingly support the efforts to trim back the government. This CR buys the time for Mike Johnson to do that with Donald Trump,” Bowdey told show host Tony Perkins.
At least one Senate Democrat, John Fetterman, has proclaimed his support for the CR.
It’s a wash, though, as Kentucky Republican Rand Paul says he’ll vote against it.
“These are the Biden spending levels. We know one result that will come from these spending levels – a $2 trillion deficit,” Paul told The Hill. “There’s nothing conservative about these spending levels. No fiscal conservative should support this.”
The burden of millions
Fetterman says voting to shut down the government is irresponsible and will “punish millions or risk a recession. I disagree with many points in the CR, but I will never vote to shut our government down.”
The CR does offer some savings, about $13 billion, Bowdey pointed out, and it offers some flexibility in how funds are used. It passed the House with support from some Republicans who as a rule oppose any type of CR, she added.
“You heard Greg Stubbe [R-Florida] say ‘I’m no fan of CRs, but I did vote for this.’ It really was a Herculean task for Mike Johnson to get all these members on, and I think that was because of the quality of the CR. What you’re seeing is a CR that doesn’t just keep the status quo,” she said.
While making some cuts, the bill increases spending for defense and veterans’ healthcare. “It gives the Trump administration latitude to make the DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] cuts permanent. I really don’t understand the Democrats’ play here,” Bowdey explained.
If Democrats’ play is difficult to grasp, their strategy to achieve it is not. Schumer’s torching of House Republicans is not new. He made his tactics clear as majority leader in June 2023 when the two chambers were embroiled in budget talks that any shutdown would be due to “political games” played by House Republicans.
“When the Senate returns next week, our focus will be on funding the government and preventing House Republican extremists from forcing a government shutdown,” he wrote, according to The Hill.
Two years later, the House, buoyed by a Republican president, aren’t buying it and have christened in advance any work stoppage with the now-minority leader’s own name.
“If they want to shut it down, it’s on them,” Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) told a press gaggle Wednesday. “That’ll be a Schumer Shutdown.”
Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) echoed the sentiment in an op-ed for Fox News. “If there’s a shutdown, it will be driven by and directed by the Democrats,” he wrote.
Dropping the DOGE disenfranchised
Mullin noted hypocrisy in Schumer’s response, saying that the federal employees who Democrats “have been fighting for supposedly” in the face of DOGE cuts would be left completely to Trump’s authority in a shutdown.
“The White House is going to be able to deem them essential and non-essential,” Mullin said.
Bowdey, however, has her doubts about that. “I’m not sure what they can accomplish from now until April,” she said. “I don’t know how you explain that to your constituents. I’m very interested in what’s going on behind closed doors.”
Still, she argues, a one-month extension of government is a weak argument against the House CR. “This really will be the fault of Democrats. The blame will rest squarely on their shoulders.”
