Shutdown donnybrook

Shutdown donnybrook
By Terry A. Hurlbut
The usual consequence of divided government – legislative deadlock – now threatens yet another federal government shutdown. Unless a Continuing Resolution passes both chambers of Congress by midnight Friday (March 14), all spending authority stops. When that happens, only essential services operate, on a do now, pay later basis. That last includes payroll, so many workers will work without pay, and the rest go on furlough. But this shutdown promises to be different. President Donald J. Trump and Budget Director Russell T. Vought are both champions of limited government – and are made of sterner stuff than their previous Republican counterparts, under similar circumstances, have been. (Democrats don’t count.) This weekend will show whether the stuff of which they are made, is stern enough.
Countdown to shutdown
Two days ago (March 11), the House passed a Continuing Resolution (CR), 217-213 with one each Republican and Democrat absent. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was the sole Republican to vote No – and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) was the sole Democrat to vote Yes.
Mr. Massie accused Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), Speaker of the House, of giving away the store – to Sen. Charles M. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the respective Senate and House Democratic Leaders. As evidence, he predicted that Democrats would let one of their number vote Yes for every Republican voting No. He even said the Democrats had a forty-person buffer to counter Republican opposition. No doubt he cites Rep. Golden’s vote as evidence. Massie also said the Democrats are planning an “offsite retreat” this weekend – and definitely want something passed by then.
https://rumble.com/v6qhz3w-rep.-thomas-massie-gives-the-low-down-on-fake-cr-fight-johnsons-deal-with-s.html?mref=4teej&mc=88ce6
Or do they? Sen. Schumer now threatens to blow up any such deal.
Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR.
Schumer is demanding a thirty-day minimal CR that he calls “clean.” Clean of what, legacy media won’t say. But Erick-Woods Erickson, the “Georgia Political Junkie,” thinks he knows. Such a CR would be “clean” of any funding for deportations, or for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE has devastated Democratic Party fundraising, because so many agency expenditures have flowed back, mostly indirectly, into Democrat campaign coffers. Deportations represent lost votes, if not immediately then certainly long-term.
Either Rep. Massie has made an assumption without warrant – or Sen. Schumer has reneged on his deal.
What a shutdown would mean
Everyone understands the procedures the government always follows in the event of a shutdown. Essential services continue to function, on a do now, pay later basis. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has a Q&A page giving details. From that page:
Each federal agency develops its own shutdown plan, following guidance released in previous shutdowns and coordinated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The plan identifies which government activities may not continue until appropriations are restored, requiring furloughs and the halting of many agency activities. Essential services – many of which are related to public safety – continue to operate, with payments covering any obligations incurred only when appropriations are enacted.
The CRFB page listed some examples. Social Security and Medicare checks would go out, but new applications would have to wait. “Food stamps” might stop after thirty days. If air traffic controllers and federal security personnel don’t show up (they don’t have to), air travel stops.
But who decides what’s essential and what’s non-essential? That authority belongs to the Office of Management and Budget – whose Director, Russell T. Vought, is a Trump man. Precedent for OMB involvement includes these bulletins from 2011 and 2023. So everyone understands the rules, and no one can accuse Mr. Vought of usurping authority.
Mr. Erickson is laughing at the Democrats, who, he says, have fallen into a trap. They dare not fund deportations or DOGE. Apart from what their activist foot soldiers think, DOGE threatens their funding, and deportations their future voting base. But in a shutdown, what Vought says, goes. Erickson expects Vought to keep national parks and monuments open – and shut down typical liberal extravaganzas.
That analysis assumes Vought has the will and spine to do that. Erickson thinks he knows Vought well enough to predict he will. The country will soon see.
Pressures in Congress
Apart from what Vought will do (and what Trump will let him do), not all Democrats want to die on Shutdown Hill. Already Republicans are preparing to lay the blame for any shutdown squarely on Democrats. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) reiterated the point about “The White House” deeming people essential or not. (The OMB is part of the Executive Office of the President.)
The thing that bugs me about this is, keep in mind, this same CR was voted for with these spending levels [in] September and December. So what's the difference now? These same employees that they've been fighting for supposedly, now they're going to yield literally all the authority to the White House because the White House is going to be able to deem them essential and non-essential.
Sen. Mullin and others pointed out the games Sen. Schumer played in the 118th Congress. Schumer refused to bring 11 of 12 appropriations bills to the floor for a vote. Furthermore, Democrats have a history of refusing to negotiate until the last minute.
The Hill quotes anonymous sources within the Senate Democratic Conference as saying Sen. Schumer won’t enforce Party discipline on “moderates” in the Senate who would vote even for the House-passed CR to avoid a shutdown. One of these “moderates” might be Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.). Breaking News Alerts quotes him:
If we vote to close it, to claim that it protects the government, that’s like burning down the village to save it.
Sen. Mullin is not the only Senator talking about how a shutdown gives full authority to the OMB. Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) plainly worry about just that. And Sen. Schumer is worried about something else: whether his “moderates” will fail of reelection. Among them: Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.). Trump carried Georgia – and if a shutdown looms, Sen. Warner might decide to retire.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) plans to vote against the CR anyway, for much the same reasons Rep. Massie did.
Analysis
The Democrats are in a trap, but only if Republicans have the spinal, alimentary, and gonadal fortitude to spring it. It’s a trap of their own making, for two reasons. First, they blew the Election of 2024. They should have asked President Biden to resign, instead of nursing him along (and likely signing documents in his absence). They also picked the worst vice-presidential running mate they could have found in 2020. Then, when they had to yank Biden out of the race, they didn’t have an open primary. Instead, they let Biden impose Harris on them.
Second, as seems likely, Charles Schumer reneged on a deal he’d cut with Speaker Johnson. Johnson won’t admit to any such deal, but Jared Goldman’s one-for-one switch suggests that Johnson and Schumer had a deal. Now that deal’s off – and with that deal has gone all of Schumer’s credibility.
Not that most Democrats care. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) railed against the House bill, saying opposing it would be worth a shutdown. Lay aside whether she and Rep. Massie are talking about the same bill. Rosa DeLauro represents a safe, even rabid, Democratic district in a one-Party State. (In fact much of her support likely comes from the Yale University student body and faculty.) Senators like Fetterman, Ossoff, Warner, Kelly, and Hickenlooper are not so safe, and they know it. And if they think they are, the country will soon see what the “firm” of Trump, Musk and Vought have to say.
Link to:
The article:
https://cnav.news/2025/03/13/accountability/legislative/shutdown-donnybrook/

Video: Rep. Massie accuses Speaker Johnson of cutting a one-to-one deal for votes to pass the CR:
https://rumble.com/v6qhz3w-rep.-thomas-massie-gives-the-low-down-on-fake-cr-fight-johnsons-deal-with-s.html?mref=4teej&mc=88ce6

Shutdown Q&A:
https://www.crfb.org/papers/government-shutdowns-qa-everything-you-should-know

Previous shutdown bulletins:
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/budget/2011/04/omb-details-shutdown-procedure/
https://www.meritalk.com/articles/omb-tells-agencies-to-prepare-for-shutdown-process/

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