Forty-four Democrats voted Tuesday to block a House-passed spending plan just hours before a long-anticipated funding deadline, sending the federal government careening toward a full shutdown for the first time since 2013.
The full government shutdown began at 12:01 am EST.
The gambit is sure to please, if only temporarily, the radical Democrat base clamoring for further resistance to President Donald Trump’s government.
But with little incentive for Republicans to make concessions to Democrats, no apparent path for Democrats to exit the shutdown exists. And the plan is widely predicted to backfire, causing long-term damage to Democrats.
Only three Democrats, Sens. John Fetterman (PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), and Angus King (I-ME), voted with a majority of Republicans for the bill, which failed 55 to 45, short of the 60 votes required. Republican Sen. Rand Paul (KY) voted against the bill. The same House-passed bill failed in the Senate just eleven days prior.
The Democrat blockade defeats a clean continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open for seven weeks to allow bipartisan negotiations, underway for months between top appropriators, to continue.
Those bipartisan negotiations to pass twelve appropriations bills with new funding levels would have been an opportunity for Democrats to use their leverage to extract concessions from Republicans.
Those bipartisan negotiations are over, perhaps terminally.
The House passed a clean continuing resolution (CR) September 19 to continue current spending levels until November 21. Those spending levels were originally passed during Joe Biden’s presidency and were extended through the end of the current fiscal year, September 30, 2025, in a CR in March.
With Trump in the White House, those Biden-era spending levels are no longer kosher for Democrats. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), under fire from his base after initially opposing then voting in favor of a March CR to continue the same funding levels now under debate, is engineering the shutdown.
House Democrats under Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) are complicit in Schumer’s scheme. Only one voted along with House Republicans on the CR on September 19.
Republicans, who hold the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate, see little incentive to give concessions to Democrats, seeing the simple short-term funding bill as a temporary measure to finalize a longer-term package, through which larger funding questions can be addressed.
Yet that has not stopped Democrats, frustrated with Trump driving the national narrative, from using the deadline to attempt to shift the conversation on health care. As Breitbart News reported Monday:
Democrats, in messaging against the bill, are leaning heavily on health care, a rare issue they see as providing them an opportunity in the 2026 midterm elections. They’ve often used the term “Republican healthcare crisis” in arguing against the short-term spending bill, which includes no new provisions affecting healthcare.
Most notably, Democrats want to use the seven-week bill to extend Obamacare subsidies that do not expire until the end of 2025. (Republicans argue a short-term bill is an inappropriate vehicle to attach such a consequential rider that deserves its own thorough debate). Democrats have also advocated for using the short-term bill to undo provisions passed by Trump’s big beautiful bill to protect Medicaid, including removing illegal aliens from welfare rolls.
The Democrat plan to fund the government by extending covid pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies would cost taxpayers $1.5 trillion, a non-starter for Republicans.
While Democrats’ scheme might force a conversation on health care, it is unclear if the benefits will outweigh the blame they’ll receive.
In a sure sign Democrats are set to receive the blame, the New York Times framed a poll question as whether or not Democrats should go forward with a government shutdown.
The results of the poll are a further dagger into Democrats, with 65 percent of respondents saying no, and even a majority of Democrat voters polled opposing their plan.
Those polled voters might have more political chops than Schumer and Jeffries. As Breitbart News reported:
Democrats’ gambit to force a shutdown would temporarily please a radical base that has caused increasing personal political peril for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Yet with no apparent path out of a shutdown in which Democrats secure meaningful wins, and with the shutdown presenting the Trump White House the authority to enact widespread cuts throughout the executive branch, the long-term benefits for the party are difficult to determine.
Any exit ramp for Democrats is likely to be bumpy. And whatever road it takes them down will lead to an even more empowered and emboldened Trump White House.
In addition to receiving blame, the shutdown itself presents nightmares for Democrats. As Breitbart News reported:
The Office of Management and Budget, led by Director Russ Vought, perhaps the most notorious opponent of the federal bureaucracy, issued a memo days before the funding deadline that said agencies should consider a “reduction in force” for many federal programs if the government closes — meaning thousands of federal workers could be permanently laid off.
Many of those shutdown layoffs of bureaucrats, who many Democrats see as their operatives within the federal government, would be permanent.
With Democrats clearly forecasting their plans, Washington had planned for a shutdown. At least one local restaurant, Butterworth’s on Capitol Hill, is offering shutdown-related drink specials beginning after the shutdown, including a furlough-rita and a continuing rye-solution.
If the shutdown lasts as long as some fear, many Democrats, especially Schumer and Jeffries, might need to stop by for a drink.