Democrats’ Distrust Of Trump And Republicans Drives Government Shutdown

With a government shutdown likely on March 14, President Trump and Congress are getting serious about preventing it—or at least discussing it. Congressional procedures mean avoiding a shutdown will require bipartisan support. But Democrats don’t trust Trump to keep any bargain he agrees to, making it hard to see what the solution might be.

Shutdown Because Regular Congressional Budget Process Is Broken

Why is a shutdown looming? Because the regular Congressional appropriations process has broken down. Congress hasn’t used its regular budgeting procedures to cover all spending since 1996—29 years ago.

Instead, Congress now routinely authorizes spending extensions for the fiscal year, using the previous year’s specific amounts if new spending isn’t agreed to. Those short-term authorizations—continuing resolutions or CRs in Congress-speak—are now the norm, with each CR finally coming after polarizing negotiations, rhetoric, and conflict.

Both parties face real negotiating challenges in the current moment, but the focus is on Republicans, who control both houses of Congress and the presidency. Republicans have an extremely slender House majority, including several very conservative members who traditionally oppose deals without deep spending cuts.

Will Conservatives Reverse Course And Support Spending?

If House Republicans lose more than one vote, they cannot pass a bill. And one of their most committed budget conservatives, Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), has already said he won’t vote for a CR that just continues previous spending levels.

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Massie has been part of a larger conservative opposition to spending. That bloc’s opposition has meant the House needs Democratic votes for a CR. This has resulted in bipartisan continuing resolutions maintaining spending levels, where both parties get some of what they want, largely enshrining the status quo.

But for our current looming shutdown, that kind of bipartisan agreement is extremely unlikely without substantial concessions from President Trump. Trump is currently leaning hard on the other House budget conservatives, calling on their loyalty and reportedly threatening them with primary opponents if they don’t support what he wants.

And he may get their support. Hard core spending opponents like Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) and Andy Harris (R-MD), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, are signaling they may reverse years of consistent anti-spending voting, and agree with Trump’s proposal.

That proposal is for a “clean” CR—simply extending current spending levels for the remainder of the fiscal year, up until September 30. But even if Trump can get the hard-core House conservatives to agree on the type of deal they’ve consistently opposed in the past, the bill can be filibustered in the Senate.

Democrats Don’t Trust Trump To Keep His Word

And a Senate filibuster seems a very real possibility. Ordinarily, a clean CR would be welcomed by both parties, clearing the decks for the coming divisive debates on raising the federal government’s borrowing limit (the debt ceiling) and the budget for next fiscal year, where Republicans will have to make deep spending cuts to pay for trillions in proposed tax cuts,

But after his flurry of executive orders upon taking office, Democrats have little confidence that Trump would keep his end of the bargain. Since his inauguration, Trump has refused to spend funds already authorized by Congress for this fiscal year. He claims his authority as president allows him to pick and choose what parts of authorized spending actually gets spent, a position at odds with current law and the views of many Constitutional scholars.

Trump, through Elon Musk and the newly-invented Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has cancelled spending, fired workers with civil service protection and sometimes closed entire agencies like the Agency for International Development through executive orders, not through Congressionally authorized procedures.

The limits on presidential spending authority are currently being fought out in federal courts, where judges are ordering temporary or permanent halts to activities under Trump’s executive orders. The New York Times reports that “as of March 7, at least 41 of those (federal court) rulings have paused some of the president’s initiatives.”

Federal court orders have been issued against Trump’s government-wide funding freeze, cutting medical research grants from the National Institutes of Health, firing of recently hired employees at the Department of Defense and elsewhere, along with stopping other non-budget issues like birthright citizenship and giving Elon Musk’s staff access to sensitive personal data and the federal system used to issue checks and payments.

Ultimately, unless Trump backs down, these issues will be decided by the Supreme Court. But Trump continues arguing he has the legal authority to cut or deny Congressional authorized spending, and there are reports his followers in federal agencies are refusing to comply with federal court orders even when ordered to reverse course.

Democrats: Get A “Have A Goddamn Backbone” And Resist Trump, Even With Long Shutdown

So Democrats wonder how a bipartisan CR preserving current spending levels would be honored or enforced.

Republican Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) says Democrats “have been insistent that we include language limiting the involvement of the executive branch on spending decisions.” And Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) says because Republicans control both chambers, “they need to put forward a package that can pass the House and Senate”—meaning one that Senate Democrats will agree to.

Others are blunter in their opposition. Politico quotes an unnamed “senior Democratic lawmaker” as saying “At some point you’ve got to have a goddamn backbone. I am not giving them a blank check until September.”

Again, a continuing resolution can pass the House with a bare majority. But a Senate filibuster in the Senate means it will need 60 votes. Democrats command 47 votes, more than enough to stop the bill even if a few members (most likely politically vulnerable ones) vote the other way.

And Trump is no stranger to shutdowns. In his first term, he presided over the longest shutdown in US history—35 days—over funding for a wall on the Mexican border. He ultimately failed to get most of what he demanded, caving under public pressure from suspended government services ranging from closed national parks to disrupted air travel to disrupted services from Social Security and the IRS.

Trump’s aggressive bargaining style, coupled with Democrats’ mistrust that he will keep any bipartisan bargain, means we could well face a long shutdown. There may be one or two very short CRs—a week or so—to save face and look for a compromise.

But Democrats are being urged to use what little power they have—through the Senate filibuster—to try and ultimately force Trump to follow the law and court rulings, commit to reopening the government, and rollback his aggressive spending and personnel cuts. Expect a rough battle, lots of fireworks, and most probably a long shutdown.