Why a Government Shutdown Really Might Happen This Time
To a lot of people, the prospect of a government shutdown whenever federal funding is on the brink of being interrupted is like the threat of an apocalyptic earthquake: something often discussed but rarely experienced. Somehow or other, even in a time of vast partisan polarization, the politicians find ways to keep the government operating, in part because no one wants to get blamed for the human suffering and widespread inconveniences associated with a shutdown.
We’re facing another “shutdown crisis” at the end of this month as the stopgap spending bill enacted in March expires on September 30. And though we’re just a couple of weeks away from the fish-or-cut-bait moment, Republicans and Democrats are not even negotiating over a temporary, much less permanent, resolution. Democrats are acutely aware that a spending bill to keep the government open is their only point of leverage in a Congress where nearly every other kind of business is conducted via special rules that prohibit Senate filibusters. On this and only this occasion, Republicans need Democratic votes. But in a nearly identical situation in March, the GOP offered zero concessions to get those votes, and after lots of empty talk about resistance, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer rounded up enough votes from his party to help Republicans break a brief filibuster and have their way.
The palpable fury of Democratic activists at Schumer’s “surrender,” and six more months of Trump power grabs with the connivance of the Republican Congress, have made Democrats far more willing to risk blame for a shutdown unless they get real concessions. They seem to have largely agreed on an extension of soon-to-expire Obamacare premium subsidies needed to head off huge insurance-cost spikes for millions of Americans as the minimum trophy they must secure before agreeing to keep the government open. But Republicans, who are divided on the Obamacare subsidies, have adopted the tack of offering (or demanding) a “clean CR,” a simple extension of current government spending levels until November 20, allegedly to give Congress more time to work out individual appropriations bills that will set funding levels for the next year. That means no concessions or even “sweeteners” for Democrats for the time being.
So the big question now is whether Democrats will go for a short-term “clean CR” on grounds they really haven’t “caved,” they’ve just given themselves more time to put pressure on the people running the country. But for the moment, the two parties in Congress are talking past each other with each side accusing the other of an unwillingness to negotiate.
There are additional irritants at play that didn’t exist back in March. The serial defiance of Congress’s spending power by the Trump administration has actually intensified as OMB director Russell Vought asserts the power to withhold previously approved funding for programs the administration doesn’t like. And while the authoritarian nature of Trump 2.0 was already becoming evident in March, it’s now an established fact that the president is pushing all known boundaries to presidential power to the breaking point with (so far) cooperation from the U.S. Supreme Court. The other recent development that may make it harder than ever for Democrats to cut any bipartisan spending deal is Trump’s big push to tip the scales in the 2026 midterm elections by getting red states like Texas, Missouri, Indiana, Florida, and South Carolina to redraw congressional maps that were supposed to last a decade in order to give the GOP more House seats (with a retaliatory re-redistricting occurring in California and perhaps some other blue states).
There’s a new wild card in the deck after last week’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. In an Oval Office address, the president essentially blamed the murder on “the radical left,” a term he uses interchangeably with “Democrats,” and threatened unspecific but drastic action to avenge Kirk’s death. Will this further poison any negotiations between Republicans and Democrats? Will it make Democrats more determined to make a stand, or more fearful of inadvertently giving Donald Trump a pretext for even more authoritarian conduct? Compared with the current atmosphere, the gut check for Democrats in March was child’s play.