The Schumer shutdown

OPINION:

The shameful Schumer shutdown of 2025 has come to pass, and Trump derangement syndrome is on full display in the halls of Congress as the seemingly incurable condition continues to eat the Democratic Party alive for all the world to see.

Although it’s no secret that the legislative branch still isn’t operating as efficiently as House Speaker Mike Johnson would like, the American people understand that it’s difficult when the minority party refuses to participate in good faith. Passing appropriations bills on time through regular order should be required for lawmakers to earn their paychecks, but this year’s unnecessary shutdown standoff feels different.

In years past, it could be argued that there was enough blame to go around for both political parties. The lethal mix of arrogance, dysfunction and partisanship courtesy of career politicians on Capitol Hill led to our annual national embarrassment, with leaders taking our nation either to the precipice of a government shutdown or off the cliff entirely.

This year, there is no blame game because it’s obvious who’s at fault, and the motivating factors are clear. Just six months ago, President Trump signed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government for the rest of fiscal year 2025. By opting not to shut down the government at the time, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer enraged his lunatic fringe base and ended up paying a massive political price. This time around, Mr. Schumer — the poster child career politician in complete survival mode — pandered to his base and concocted a phony narrative to ensure a shutdown at a time when our country can least afford it, much to the detriment of the people he has been elected to serve.

So, it’s fitting to lay out the facts and tell the truth about how we really got here. On Sept. 19, the House passed a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open through the third week of November, giving Congress more time to pass the outstanding fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills. The House passed a measure that received only one Democratic vote, with White House support and no politically controversial elements attached. That didn’t stop Mr. Schumer from instructing his caucus to oppose the commonsense measure.

Democrats are flat-out lying when they say this is a Republican-caused shutdown. It takes 60 votes to pass a spending bill in the U.S. Senate, and Republicans hold only 53 seats.

To date, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, have been the only Democratic senators willing to oppose the “Schumer Shutdown Strategy” to keep the government open. So, at the end of the day, it will take a minimum of seven Democratic votes in the Senate to end a shutdown.

In other words, unless more Democrats buck their reckless leader, the government could remain closed for an extended period. During the Schumer Shutdown, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has the authority to slash unfunded nonessential jobs in the federal bureaucracy and target more waste, fraud and abuse throughout the government.

Let’s remember that at the eleventh hour, radicalized congressional Democrats coalesced around a hostage taking approach. They told Mr. Trump and Republican leaders that if they didn’t agree to add $1.5 trillion in health care subsidies for illegal immigrants and other items on the liberal wish list to the continuing resolution, Democrats would not vote to keep the government open.

If this sounds like a crazy position, that’s because it is. Democrats are in the minority in Congress because they lost elections. Part of the reason they lost is that hardworking taxpayers are sick and tired of being deprioritized in favor of illegal immigrants. So, the level of tone-deaf behavior shown by Mr. Schumer and his fellow leftists is truly counterproductive. Doubling down on failure is a surefire way for Democrats to cement themselves as the minority party in our country for the foreseeable future. This is textbook TDS.

Unsurprisingly, the biased mainstream media have once again failed in their coverage of our latest government funding drama. America has a crippling $37 trillion national debt. Failing to mention this fact in stories about the government funding debate is a total dereliction of duty.

Look at it this way: If our debt crisis were talked about in the press regularly, as it should be, the Democratic position of demanding $1.5 trillion in new spending would be laughed out of the room. This is just one of the ways the liberal media give in-kind corporate contributions to their political allies in the Democratic Party.

Mr. Trump promised the American people that he would confront Washington’s addiction to out-of-control federal spending, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. Since taking office, this president has empowered the Department of Government Efficiency to identify more than $200 billion in savings that would have been otherwise wasted. He has signed into law the largest cut in mandatory spending in history and is making rescission packages the new normal. This is all part of the long-overdue return to fiscal responsibility that Mr. Trump is overseeing. Unfortunately, Democrats got the memo, but they threw it into the garbage in favor of protecting the failed status quo at all costs.

The mess Mr. Schumer and his fellow Democrats have gotten us into is the opposite of common sense. In fact, voters rejected antics like this by sending Mr. Trump back to the White House for a historic second term. Rest assured that the American people don’t like being ignored, and the Schumer Shutdown will be long remembered.

• David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United. He served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President.