Editor’s note: After this article was published, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reversed course on the funding bill. “Either proceed with the bill before us or risk Donald Trump throwing America into the chaos of a shutdown. This in my view is no choice at all. While the [House bill] is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” Schumer said, according to Politico.
The New York Democrat added, “I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country, to minimize the harms to the American people. Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.”
The Senate was set to vote Thursday on the House’s continuing resolution to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has already called for Senate Democrats to oppose the bill as written, and instead proposed an amendment to fund the government only for 30 days.
Republican Senate leadership took aim at the Democrat senator from New York for leading the government to the brink of a fiscal crisis.
“In Senator Schumer’s last five months as majority leader, he didn’t bring a single fiscal year 2025 appropriations bill to the floor,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told The Daily Signal.
For discretionary spending, Congress ordinarily passes 12 separate appropriations bills.
“It’s time for the Democrat leader to acknowledge that it’s his decisions that put us here, and to urge his colleagues to accept the situation and vote to fund the government. If the Democrat leader has problems with the current situation, he should have funded the government when he was in charge,” Thune said.
If the Senate does not pass the continuing resolution today, then the government will enter a partial shutdown where nonessential services are paused, and nonessential staffers are furloughed. The shutdown will not affect services such as Social Security, which is separate, mandatory spending.
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told The Daily Signal that the minority leader would own the consequences of opposing the continuing funding.
“This is Schumer’s shutdown. The Democrats would rather let the government shut down than support much-needed priorities for hardworking Americans. This latest attempt to force Leader Thune’s hand is nothing more than a desperate attempt to save face,” the Montana senator said.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told The Daily Signal and other assembled reporters outside the Senate chamber that he would “be fine voting on their [the Democrats’] bill. I don’t know how the leadership feels about it.”
The North Dakota senator explained that it would be pointless to vote on the bill, however, because then it would have to be sent back to the House, and that would require House members to come back into session.
“It’s hard for me to see a world where Democrats would literally be the ones to prevent funding to the government,” Cramer said, noting that government funding comes more easily to the Democratic Party than the GOP.
Indeed, Democrat opposition to government funding is a reversal of the party’s usual preference for keeping federal spending and retaining federal personnel. Just this month, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., joined federal workers in a protest outside the Office of Management and Budget. Other Democrat senators brought fired federal workers to the president’s address to a joint session of Congress on Feb. 4.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
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