An interparty feud between Democratic leaders has broken out between the House and Senate members after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that he would be voting for the Republican-led so-called “clean” continuing resolution that will fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year which ends Sept. 30.
The chaos began when Schumer appeared on the Senate floor on March 13 announcing his decision, stating, “I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country, to minimize the harms to the American people. Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.”
He then went on to accuse President Donald Trump — who supports the funding bill — and Elon Musk of trying to shut down the government, saying, “There is nobody in the world, nobody, who wants to shut the government down more than Donald Trump and more than Elon Musk. We should not give it to them.”
Which of course, is absurd. It’s a Republican-led bill, but here, Schumer wants his constituents to believe that Republicans secretly oppose their own legislation. It’s nuts.
Does Schumer think House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) are trying to trick Democrats into voting against a bill where all it does is finish the work the previous Congress could not and fund the government until the end of the year without any substantive changes? It freezes discretionary spending levels at the prior year’s level. Relatively speaking, that’s a political win for Republicans.
Originally, Schumer wanted to keep voting every 30 days on another continuing resolution, perhaps betting that U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) opposition to such spending bills would multiply with subsequent votes as Republicans eventually worked to defeat their own legislation, doing Schumer’s job for him. Wouldn’t that be swell for him?
Maybe Schumer just realizes that defending $20 million puppet shows in Iraq is not the best thing for Congressional Democrats right now, which is just the type of wasteful spending that Trump and the White House Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been targeting.
Now, Democrats are feuding with one another over what to do, uncertain if they want to fund the government and prevent a partial shutdown or not.
For example, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted Schumer for keeping the government open, stating, “I cannot underscore enough how incorrect that is… What voting for this CR does is that it codifies the chaos and the reckless cuts that Elon Musk has been pursuing, the robbing of our federal government in order to finance tax cuts for billionaires is what is happening. And that is what Senate Democrats will be empowering if they vote for this CR.”
Now, the part about the continuing resolution allowing the DOGE cuts to go into effect isn’t true at all. It’d be nice if it were true, but it isn’t. That will, if it happens, likely be in the Republican-led budget reconciliation plan — a proposed package of tax cuts, border wall funding and DOGE-identified rescissions of previous spending — which has not been presented yet.
It could be that by voting on legislation that doesn’t stop the DOGE cuts — the continuing resolution definitely doesn’t do anything except to fund the government at the prior year’s levels — more radical Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez trying to pin the failure to stop Trump on senior leaders like Schumer.
But elections have consequences, and being out of power as Republicans control the House, Senate and White House leaves Schumer with few options. He merely has the ability to wield a filibuster in the Senate only gives Schumer the power to prevent a funding bill from moving forward, which has the impact of causing a partial government shutdown.
Schumer’s only hope would be Republicans in the House or Senate breaking with GOP leaders to create an opening that might lead to a more bipartisan bill, but not enough of them were doing that.
Instead, Democrats are in the position to be blamed for a government shutdown when the only thing at stake was how many times Congress would have to vote on continuing resolutions before Sept. 30, as Republicans have shifted all of their policy proposals to the budget bill that is not yet up for consideration.
In other words, Democrats could keep the government shut down all year long by refusing to adopt a continuing resolution, and it still would not stop Republicans from passing their budget reconciliation package with tax cuts, the border wall and DOGE cuts on bare majorities. Stopping one doesn’t stop the other, and clearly Democrats are frustrated as reality sets in. Elections have consequences.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government.
