My Thoughts on Schumer’s Shutdown Strategy
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Happy Sunday, everyone! In this week’s mailbag issue, we’ll discuss:
Where Chuck Schumer went right and wrong in the shutdown fight
Whether the government funding bill cuts Medicaid
The legality of Trump’s Tesla purchase on the White House lawn
What was up with Biden signing so many bills by autopen
And more!
Q: By the time you answer this, we’ll know if the Democrats dropped their filibuster and let the CR pass, or if they torpedoed the bill and caused a government shutdown. Either way, it seems once again they’ll lose the PR battle. I think they should have started a campaign a month ago with a clear, consistent message like “Give us a clean CR and we’ll pass it. Otherwise Republicans will be responsible for the ensuing shutdown.” Do you think this would have worked? If not, how do you think the Democrats should have handled it?
I got a lot of questions about how the Democrats, especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), handled last week’s fiscal showdown, so let’s start there.
Many Democrats are furious that Schumer, along with nine other members of his caucus, voted to advance the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) on Friday, blocking a filibuster and allowing the measure to eventually pass. (President Trump has now signed it into law, averting a shutdown.) The vast majority of Democratic senators voted for a filibuster; reportedly, some are now questioning whether Schumer should remain as leader, while House Democrats are talking about supporting a primary challenge against him in 2028.
Rather than take online reaction as fact, I’ll wait until we have more polling to gauge the reaction from the Democratic base — but it’s worth noting that, even before the shutdown disagreement, Democratic voters were highly displeased with their party leaders. Both NBC and CNN are out with polls this morning (conducted before Schumer’s announcement) showing the Democratic Party’s favorability rating at an all-time low, largely due to a surge of dissatisfaction from the party’s own voters.
Those polls shows that, heading into the funding showdown, Democratic voters were spoiling for a fight. But vaguely demanding a “fight” is easy. Thinking through the long-term consequences of a fight is harder. That’s what I’d like to do here.
The way I see it, there are three different scenarios to compare: what the political and fiscal status quo looked like before Friday, what they look like under the new CR, and what they would have looked like under a shutdown. As I see it, here’s how each of those universes stack up against each other: