A Sept. 22 to Sept. 27 New York Times-Sienna poll found 65 percent of registered voters oppose Congressional Democrats’ efforts to use a government shutdown to meet their demands, which include permanently expanding Obamacare tax credits, giving taxpayer-funded health care to millions of illegal aliens including DACA and removing the One Big Beautiful Bill’s protections against waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid.
Particularly, Democrats are closely divided on the shutdown plan, with 43 percent opposing the shutdown, along with 92 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents.
In a similar vein, 43 percent of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ voters also oppose the Democrats’ shutdown strategy, as do 91 percent of President Donald Trump’s voters.
The Democratic plan, besides being unpopular, would be costly, adding $662 billion in the deficit over the next decade, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) have already offered to talk to Democrats later about their concerns on expiration of Obamacare premium tax credits, they have also said they will not do so while the government is shut down.
There is nothing left to negotiate.
The House has already passed a clean continuing resolution through Nov. 21 to give the appropriations process more time. The only thing gumming up the works is the U.S. Senate, with Senate Democrats blocking the bill until their demands are met. But this is a no-win situation for the Democrats. It won’t work.
Because it has never worked with the party attempting to block basic government funding lacking the House, the Senate and White House. The shutdowns we have experienced were always with situations of mixed government.
In other words, the parties in failed prior shutdowns had a lot more leverage than Democrats have today in their weakened position.
The 2018-2019 shutdown was intent to push border wall funding via a continuing resolution that Democrats filibustered, that ended when Congressional Republicans folded and President Trump instead declared a national emergency to reprogram existing security funding towards the border wall instead. Republicans had the House, Senate and White House, lost the House to Democrats after the 2018 midterms, ultimately could not use the shutdown to get Democrats to agree to border funding.
A 2013 shutdown to stop funding for Obamacare similarly failed. In that case, Democrats controlled the White House and Senate, while Republicans had a majority in the House. Democrats in the Senate would not support the House Republican plan to defund Obamacare and eventually Republican leaders folded.
The 1995 and 1996 shutdowns (there were two) occurred with Republicans with House and Senate majorities, while Democrats had the White House, and they could not get Bill Clinton to agree to all of their demands, although it ultimately led to balanced budget agreements in subsequent years. Some mixed success there, which depended entirely on Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
A 1990 shutdown began when then-President George H.W. Bush vetoed a funding bill — Democrats controlled the House and the Senate at the time — only to fold days later by replacing his proposals to raise taxes and cut spending.
The shutdowns of the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan all occurred in situations of mixed government two, with Republicans controlling the White House and Senate, and Democrats running the House. These too had mixed results, and again, were dependent on having majorities.
There is such no majority to pass the Democrats’ continuing resolution. It just failed in the Senate by a vote of 47 to 53 with a single Republican supporting it. They could bring it up 100 times and it would still fail. There is not even a veneer that what they are attempting to jam down the American people’s throats is bipartisan.
You need one of the three, the House, the Senate or the White House to really get to the table on a shutdown, and Democrats lack all three. They don’t even have a debt ceiling to barter with, or to hold back border wall funding or other parts of the President’s economic program. All that was adopted in the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill. So, this is going nowhere — fast.
Which might be in Democrats’ best interests, considering how little support there is for a Democratic-fueled shutdown to meet their Obamacare expansion demands — just 27 percent in the New York Times-Siena poll who thought the shutdown was a good idea, and Democrats deeply divided on the issue. With that kind of internal division, it is just a matter of time before Democrats fold — without getting anything in return.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government.
