Shutdown Surrender
I have to admit, I did not have “Schumer Caves In” on my bingo card for last Friday. After strident comments barely two days earlier, the Senate Minority Leader voted to proceed with funding the government through the fiscal year on September 30, avoiding a partial government shutdown.
He claimed that the continuing resolution was a bad bill, but that shutting down the government would be worse because of what the Trump Administration might do. As usual, no specifics and no evidence, just a broad claim.
Shutting down the government is never good, nor is passing a continuing resolution instead of an actual budget. But enough people had figured out that Democrats voted for this type of spending when they were in the majority, so voting against it now would be seen as purely political. This is just another continuation of Democrat budgets, so the GOP can hardly claim victory with the level of spending, either.
Now comes the real test of leadership, on all sides. We are in the zone for Congress to go through regular order and pass the series of spending bills needed prior to the start of the next government fiscal year on October 1. There is absolutely no reason it cannot be done. There are no further pesky continuing resolutions to pass to get through this year, the calendar says this is when budget talks start, it’s not an election year. Again…absolutely no reason it cannot be done.
Certainly does not mean it will be done, of course. The Democrats in the Senate did not fold their cards last week as a sign they’ll roll over on everything to come. My suspicion is that polling showed they’d get blamed for a shutdown; that’s certainly how folks in Friday’s KXEL Poll Question of the Day felt.
And Sen. Schumer is correct, Democrats blocking the bill would only give President Trump another public opinion bounce. My guess is they are hoping that all the activity from the White House, including tariffs and DOGE, will ultimately blow back against Trump, so they are just laying in wait, playing possum, to see how Americans feel about Trump 2.0 come the end of summer.
We are a long way from here to there. But those on the left do have something in mind strategically. Those on the right, therefore, would be wise to view this as a one-off and to remain humble about how much power their slim majorities do hold.
