‘The Schumer Shutdown’ of 2025

OPINION:

Well, here we go again: another September and another government funding drama. Flailing congressional Democrats are plotting to hold the executive branch hostage with more stale political games, but President Trump is poised to call their bluff and carry on with the business of making America great again.

If both houses of Congress fail to pass all 12 appropriations bills, or a so-called continuing resolution, by Sept. 30, the federal government will shut down. For Americans who rely on common sense, responsibility and honesty in their daily lives, this act is getting tiresome. After taking off the entire month of August, lawmakers have much work to do on Capitol Hill — only a handful of appropriations bills have been passed to date — but these are not normal times for legislators.

Not so long ago, if Congress was facing a similar deadline, members of both parties would have worked together to solve the problem. Although that certainly sounds like the prudent path forward, so long as Sen. Charles E. Schumer is the Democratic leader in the Senate, that’s not going to happen.

Our Founding Fathers never envisioned the absurdity of one of the political parties refusing to participate in the annual government funding process in good faith, but that’s exactly where we are with today’s ultraradicalized Democratic Party. As House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune navigate the political landscape with a razor-thin majority in the House and 53 Republican seats in the Senate, they do so with the reality that Mr. Schumer isn’t rooting for America’s big Trump-fueled comeback.

Mr. Schumer knows full well that passing appropriations bills in the Senate requires 60 votes, so he views a spending fight as another opportunity to be seen as obstructing Mr. Trump, even if it’s at America’s expense. It’s truly diabolical behavior, but sadly, that’s the state of affairs in Washington.

Mr. Schumer is in pure survival mode, and for a tone-deaf career politician, hanging on to power by any means necessary is everything to him. So, chances are that Mr. Schumer will opt for another season of rigid partisanship, dysfunction and gridlock, which will pave the way for the 2025 edition of “The Schumer Shutdown.”

Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans would much rather pass all the appropriations bills on time, under regular order and with maximum transparency. The problem is that it’s impossible to engage in honest negotiations with Mr. Schumer. Throughout this year’s appropriations process, the White House and Republican majority in Congress have been making spending decisions in the context of America’s crippling $37 trillion debt crisis. It doesn’t take a political wizard to understand that when faced with such a bleak fiscal outlook, meaningful spending cuts and reforms are absolute necessities.

Therein lies the problem: Deranged congressional Democrats don’t think our government has a spending problem. Their default position is to ignore our debt emergency and collude with allies in the biased, left-wing media in hopes of making our unsustainable national debt a nonissue.

This devious but predictable behavior by out-of-touch, greedy politicians is part of the reason voters sent Mr. Trump back to the White House for a historic second term. The American people elected the president and the Republican majority on Capitol Hill to confront and defeat the failed status quo. Mr. Schumer is the chief caretaker of Washington’s decay. His deep-pocketed socialist benefactors are instructing him to be an obstacle to every commonsense “America First” reform that comes down the pike.

Although a total and complete disaster, the strategy is as clear as day. Mr. Trump is securing the border; Democrats say no. Mr. Trump is fighting inflation; Democrats say no. Mr. Trump is fighting crime; Democrats say no. Mr. Trump is fighting reckless government spending; Democrats say no. This behavior is as disgraceful as it is irresponsible, and Americans are sick of it.

So far this year, Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans have made admirable progress in taking on the federal government’s wasteful spending addiction. First, Mr. Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency, an operation that has dutifully identified $205 billion in savings that would have been flushed down the toilet by any other administration. Then, Mr. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act enacted another $1.5 trillion in mandatory spending cuts. Most recently, Congress passed a $9 billion rescissions savings package and Mr. Trump subsequently approved $4.9 billion in pocket rescissions.

When it comes to the appropriations process, in the absence of 60 votes in the Senate, Republican efforts to rein in even more out-of-control spending are hitting a wall because there’s no Democratic support to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars. Unless Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans give in to Mr. Schumer’s threats and irresponsible demands, the unhinged Democratic leader might very well get what he wants: a government shutdown to appease his socialist base and wealthy liberal donors in New York and California.

Mr. Schumer would be wise to observe what’s happening with Mr. Trump’s efforts to fight high crime in the deep blue cities of Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore. Instead of working with the president to solve the festering problem, governors and professional agitators Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker and Wes Moore are ignoring their constituents and standing firmly against the president’s overtures to help take their streets back from violent criminals.

The Democrats’ strategy to ignore their ongoing crime disasters because of Trump derangement syndrome is horrible, and Americans are watching. Also, causing a government shutdown on account of an advanced case of TDS will not end well for Mr. Schumer. He should learn from the mistakes of blue state governors and consider a more reasonable course, such as working with Mr. Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill to get our nation’s fiscal house in order instead of paving the way for another government shutdown.

• David N. Bossie is the president of Citizens United. He served as a senior adviser to the Trump 2024 and 2020 campaigns. He served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President in 2016 and deputy executive director for the Trump transition team.