For weeks, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Dem., NY) had been in the forefront of Senate Democrats’ opposition to the proposed Republican continuing resolution, to keep the government running until a comprehensive budget – technically due in a few weeks – could be agreed upon. So, Schumer created a firestorm amongst the Senate when he reversed course and secured enough Democratic Senate votes to enable the adoption of the temporary spending measure.
Schumer’s action drew wide criticism within the Party and calls for him to explain himself. Indeed, Schumer had been contending that the Republican proposal contains no detailed instructions from Congress about how to spend appropriated funds, which the Wall Street Journal notes, would give Trump officials greater flexibility to put spending on hold.
In addition, while the measure would largely extend current spending for the next six months, it rejected proposed additional Democratic spending while, as supported by Republicans, raising military spending by $6 billion and cutting non-defense spending by $13 billion.
Schumer’s explanation came in an illuminating interview with The New York Times. He said President Trump and Elon Musk were “anti-government fanatics” and “nihilists” who wanted to shutter “agency after agency” which would create a situation far worse than the Republican stop-gap bill. It would enable Trump and Musk to speed up their restructuring of the federal government. That is, if there were a government shutdown, it would almost by definition mean there would be a shortage of money and an administration would have the power to determine which employees and services are essential or nonessential.
Thus, according to Schumer, “Two days from now in a shutdown, they could say, SNAP, well, food stamps for kids is not essential. It’s gone. All veterans’ offices in rural areas are gone. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. They’re not essential. We’re cutting them back. So it’d be horrible. The damage they can do under a shutdown is much worse than any other damage that they could do.”
While Schumer’s thrust has a certain facial logic to it, it does seem hard to believe that Republicans would really enjoy unfettered power to run the government during a shutdown, unrestricted by what half of the nation may think. And of course, those who don’t buy into Schumer’s pitch include some members of the House and Senate who have been around as or almost as long as Schumer.
Not to put too fine a point on it, it seems to us that Schumer may be trying to jolt Democrats and wean them away from wooden obeisance to the woke culture that has insinuated into their politics but which is fast being rejected by voters. Anything that can draw attention away from the Democratic embrace of recent woke culture would seem to be fair game.
Indeed, barely a day seems to go by without this or that company announcing its abandonment of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) investment and employment policies. Analyses of results of recent local and national elections reveal a growing disenchantment with the notion and costs of sanctuary cities, transgenderism in sports, reverse discrimination, open borders, campus disruptions, wasteful and profligate spending and ideological environmentalism.
We are not suggesting that a dyed in the wool blue Democrat like Sen. Schumer is about to turn red. But we are thinking that he may be looking for ways to keep his party relevant.
