Schummer Exalts in Gridlock

In the WSJ, Kimberley Strassel longs for the good old days. The anniversary marks a new low in institutional governance. This week, some in the House finally realized that the unforeseen consequences of the current shutdown will be more gridlock.

To end the current funding crisis is to create a new funding crisis. Democrats have now guaranteed that Rome is burning.

No reason to fear that the shutdown will end soon. Progressive hero Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is getting a whiff of nihilism that has swept his caucus.

Senate Democrats this week voted for the 12th time to keep the government shut, and on Thursday even voted to deny checks to the troops and other “essential” federal workers—think air-traffic controllers and border agents—who have been working without pay.

Will this play out? “Every day gets better” for Democrats, lauds Mr. Schumer. The Trump administration has attempted to mitigate shutdown suffering, but measures are hitting a wall.

• The federal workforce—including Senate staffers—missed its first full paycheck this week.
• The military and House staffers get stiffed next week.
• States are starting to cut off food stamps for 41 million Americans
• Head Start will soon run out of money
• Air-traffic-control sick-outs are beginning to snarl travel

Armageddon 

Why not an 1 November exit? That date is the end of many federal food benefits. It is also the end of the entire (stated) Democratic rationale for the shutdown—”the need to extend enhanced ObamaCare subsidies before insurers on the exchange begin open enrollment.” Given the attention the left has managed to focus on how broken ObamaCare is in general, continues Ms. Strassel, the first of November seems an especially appropriate day.

But no. The Democrats now think a continued shutdown drama might drive base turnout in the Nov. 4 elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Or win that California redistricting referendum. Or ruin Donald Trump’s Thanksgiving. Or something.

The length of this shutdown has shattered whatever plans Congress (both sides) had for an orderly exit from the impasse. And that means that what comes next could prove to be as messy as what we have now.

You see, on 19 September, the House passed a continuing resolution designed to keep the government humming until 21 November, giving Congress eight weeks to work through this fiscal year’s appropriations.

Every day that passes makes that resolution more of a dead letter, and adds to the elusiveness of a deal.

Chief appropriators Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Patty Murray (D., Wash.) have made commendable progress on fiscal 2026 bills, continues KS.

But those bills—this being the Senate—spend tens of billions more than House Republicans will tolerate.

… don’t expect Speaker Mike Johnson to end his career by turning to Democrats to jam them through. Nobody is rubber-stamping anything, yet there’s no time for a House-Senate conference.

As Attractive as a Root Canal

Yes, pressure is on Mr. Johnson to bring the House back to start over – a prospect about as appealing as a root canal, KS notes.

By this point there’s no guarantee he can pass another continuing resolution, no agreement on what one would look like, and no optimism it would produce a result.

Democrats are so thoroughly in tantrum mode that last week they refused to provide 60 votes for a single (popular) funding bill—the annual defense appropriations bill, which in July passed 26-3 out of committee.

Even if Dems end the shutdown, will they agree to any full-year funding that doesn’t give them everything they want—including wild ObamaCare subsidies?

Some Republicans are now arguing for a full-year continuing resolution, one that gets Congress past next year’s midterms. That, however, “would lock the GOP into another year of Joe Biden spending levels, starve the military, and infuriate House conservatives who were promised an end to government by continuing resolution or omnibus.”

With this current impasse, some GOP members are floating the ill-considered idea of killing the filibuster for appropriations. As K. Strassell notes, that move “would rescue Democrats from their shutdown morass, even as Republicans did the left’s dirty work—making real the left’s dream of ending the Senate’s best institutional check.”

Washington Dysfunction 

The next Democratic Congress would take that GOP precedent and run with it—killing the filibuster to impose gun control, federalize voting rules, open borders, and blow the bank.

… Democrats’ intransigence in this one—their indifference to convention or consequence in their drive to impose their demands on a country they lost in the last election—is unfortunate evidence that dysfunction can always get worse.

What’s worse than a shutdown? In this case, maybe what comes after.