As you are aware,
enough Senate Democrats voted to pass the budget that had been designed by the
House Republicans so that the government could continue to be funded past
midnight last night. For now, the government will stay funded until September
30, when another round of negotiations will begin again.
Since Republicans
control the White House and both chambers of congress, the only tool that the
Democrats could have used to pass a more agreeable bill was the filibuster, but
Senator Schumer elected not to use it, and Heather Cox Richardson explains why:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-14-2025
Today the Senate passed a
stopgap measure from the House of Representatives to fund the government for
six months through September 30. The measure is necessary because the Republican-dominated House has
been unable to pass the appropriations bills necessary to fund the government
in 2025. Congress has kept the government open by agreeing to pass a
series of continuing resolutions, or CRs, that fund the government at the
levels of the previous budget. The most recent continuing resolution to keep
the government funded expired at midnight last night.
The Republicans in the House passed a new measure to replace it on
Tuesday and then left town, forcing the Senate either to pass it or to kill it
and leave the government unfunded.
The
new measure is not a so-called clean CR that simply extends previous funding.
Instead, the Republican
majority passed it without input from Democrats and with a number of poison
pills added. The measure increases defense spending by about $6 billion
from the previous year, cuts about $13 billion from nondefense spending, and
cuts $20 billion in funding for the Internal Revenue Service. It forces Washington, D.C., to
cut $1 billion from its budget, protects President Donald Trump’s ability to
raise or lower tariffs as he wishes, and gives him considerable leeway in
deciding where money goes.
House
Democrats stood virtually united against the measure—only Jared Golden of Maine
voted yes—and initially, Republican defectors on the far right who oppose
levels of funding that add to the deficit appeared likely to kill it. But Trump
signed on to the bill and urged Republicans to support it. In the end, on the
Republican side, only Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) voted against it.
Like
the House, the Senate is dominated by Republicans, who hold 53 seats, but the
institution of the filibuster, which requires a two-thirds majority of the
Senate to end it, gave Democrats room to stop the measure from coming to a
vote. Whether they should do so or not became a heated fight over the past
three days. To vote on the measure itself, Republicans needed 60 votes to end
the potential for a filibuster. To get to 60 votes, Republicans would need some
Democrats to agree to move on to a vote that would require a simple majority.
The
struggle within the Democratic Party over how to proceed says a lot about the
larger political struggle in the United States.
House
Democrats took a strong stand against enabling the Trump Republicans, calling
for Democratic senators to maintain the filibuster and try to force the
Republicans to negotiate for a one-month continuing resolution that would give
Congress time to negotiate a bipartisan bill to fund the government.
But
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he would support advancing the
spending bill. He argued
that permitting the Republicans to shut down the government would not only hurt
people. It would also give Trump and his sidekick billionaire Elon Musk
full control over government spending, he said, because under a shutdown, the administration gets to
determine which functions of the government are essential and which are not.
(As a reminder, the last two government shutdowns that Trump caused
cost the economy $11 billion).
In an op-ed in the New
York Times yesterday, Schumer noted that Musk has said
he was looking forward to a government shutdown. Jake Lahut, Leah Feiger, and
Vittoria Elliott reported in Wired on Tuesday that Musk wanted a government
shutdown because it would make it easier to get rid of hundreds of thousands of
government workers. During a shutdown, the executive branch determines
which workers are essential and which are not, and as Josh Marshall of Talking
Points Memo highlights, Trump has
issued an executive order calling for the government to stabilize at the
skeleton crew that a government shutdown would call essential. Yesterday was
the government-imposed deadline for agencies to submit plans to slash their budgets
with a second wave of mass layoffs, so at least part of a plan is already in
place.
Schumer said that Trump and the
Republicans were forcing Democrats into a choice between a bad bill and a
shutdown that would hand even more power to Trump. “[T]he Republican bill is a terrible option,”
he wrote. “It is deeply partisan. It doesn’t address this country’s needs.
But…Trump and Elon Musk want a shutdown. We should not give them one. The risk
of allowing the president to take even more power via a government shutdown is
a much worse path.”
There
appeared to be evidence this morning that Trump and Musk wanted a shutdown when
before the vote had taken place, Trump publicly congratulated Schumer for
voting to fund the government, seemingly goading him into voting against it.
“[R]eally good and smart move by Senator Schumer,” he posted.
But
as Schumer and a few of his colleagues contemplated allowing the Republicans to
pass their funding measure, a number of Democrats called on them to resist the
Trump administration and its congressional enablers. House Democrats urged
their Senate colleagues to take a stand against the destruction Trump and Musk
are wreaking and to maintain a filibuster. At the forefront, Representative
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) mobilized her large following to stop Schumer
and those like him from deciding to “completely roll over and give up on
protecting the Constitution.”
Representative
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the former speaker of the House, backed Ocasio-Cortez,
issuing a statement calling the choice between a shutdown and the proposed bill
a “false choice.” She called instead for fighting the Republican bill and
praised the House Democrats who had voted against the measure. “Democratic
senators should listen to the women,” she wrote, who have called for a
short-term extension and a negotiated bipartisan agreement. “America has
experienced a Trump shutdown before—but this damaging legislation only makes
matters worse. Democrats must not buy into this false choice. We must fight
back for a better way. Listen to the women, For The People.”
In
the end, Schumer voted to move the measure forward. Joining him were Democratic
senators John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada,
Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Kirsten Gillibrand of New
York, Gary Peters of Michigan, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and Jeanne
Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Independent Angus King of Maine. One
Republican—Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky—voted against moving the measure
forward.
Once
freed from the filibuster, Senate Republicans passed the bill by a vote of 54
to 46, with New Hampshire’s Shaheen and Maine’s King joining the Republican
majority and Republican Rand Paul voting against.
And
so, the government will not shut down. But today’s struggle within the Democratic
Party shows a split between those who lead an opposition party devoted to
keeping the government functioning, and a number of Democrats who are stepping
into the position of leading the resistance to MAGA as it tries to destroy the
American government. Praise for those resisters shows the popular demand for
leaders who will stand up to Trump and Musk.
Essentially, the Democrats had a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.
bettween the devils and the deep blue sea - Search Images
Assuming that
Trump does not die in office, there are steps that can be taken to correct that
mistakes that the Trump administration if taking:
1) Since there is little that Congress can do,
the best option at this point is the courts, who have reversed some of the most
egregious policies that Trump has put in place.
2) Protests by individual citizens are starting
to have an effect, making it nearly impossible for Republican representative to
hold townhall meetings.
3) As our relationships with our allies
continue to deteriorate, NATO counties will take a more active role in keeping
the world safe, as exemplified by their commitment to continue to support
Ukraine.
4) Trump’s on and off again tariffs have
caused chaos in the economy, rattling the stock market and consumers, which will
make the 2026 midterms a disaster for the Republican party.
5) The states that are controlled by the Democratic
party are taking steps to reverse the damage that is being done to our country.
We’re all getting
tired of reading about the daily stupidity of the Trump administration, which
is the reason that Lawrence O’Donnell felt compelled to take da week off from
MSNBC to that he would not go crazy.
If there are times
that you feel that there is no hope, consider the words that Margaret Mead said
many years ago:
“Never doubt that
that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed,
it’s the only thing that ever has”
(If you are
interested to read what else Margaret Mead had to say, click on the link below:
https://www.azquotes.com/author/9917-Margaret_Mead
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