The Telegraph – The Democrats have been painted into a corner, unable to surrender without humiliating themselves.
This game of legislative chicken has long been accepted as part of American politics. This time, it is all different.
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programmes that they like”. Donald Trump was in a bullish mood on Tuesday, as the first US government shutdown in nearly seven years loomed.
And for good reason. Just hours later, Senate Democrats voted down a last-minute Republican proposal to provide stopgap funds to allow the government to continue operating for another seven weeks while negotiations continue. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees deemed “non-essential” are now set to be furloughed – or temporarily suspended – from employment.
Trump believes his administration can take advantage of the impasse to sack government workers – particularly those who are already curiously designated “non-essential” – and to cut further spending that falls outside the category of essential services. A memo from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget suggests that permanent layoffs implemented during the shutdown could go even further. They could potentially affect all federal employees who work in areas not funded by standing budgets, or those whose positions exceed their agencies’ minimum statutory function.
Government shutdowns come when the rival parties cannot agree on continuing budget resolutions, with a supermajority (at least 60 votes) required to proceed in the Senate. Although Republicans hold a majority of Senate seats, their control of the upper chamber of Congress is not expansive enough to force through the measures over the objections of minority Democrats. The Democratic leadership, at a 30-year low in the public approval ratings and under considerable internal pressure to show backbone against Trump, are seeking extensions to funding for the Affordable Care Act, a healthcare scheme introduced by Barack Obama, and rollbacks to Medicaid cuts that were approved as part of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”.
This game of legislative chicken has long been accepted as part of American politics, but traditionally it is the Republicans who have turned out the worse for it. Labelled “obstructionists” by Democrats regardless of the issue at hand, GOP politicians seeking to shut down the government have long invited harsh criticism for their ideological opposition to big government, which the American Left presents as a cure-all for the nation’s ills.
Leftist media traditionally repeats Democrat talking points during shutdowns, while parading soapy human interest stories about government employees who have to do without their salaries and citizens who temporarily cease to benefit from suspended services. After a few days or weeks, the parties reach a deal, which inevitably restores the government to full operations and grants the furloughed workers back-pay for their time spent not working.
This time, it is all different. The legacy media is no longer even close to the force it previously was, with 69 per cent of Americans recently saying they have little or no trust in it. Convincing this sceptical public that the mean Republicans are responsible for the entirety of the nation’s fiscal plight – or really any other problem – is already proving an uphill battle.
Democrats are, after all, trying to claim that they stand for “the American people” at the same time as disrupting the services that many Americans rely on. Painted into a strategic corner, they are also predicating approval for any deal on social spending that voters decisively rejected at the last election. Even the reliably progressive Washington Post has called the Democrats’ strategy a “risky move” and a “trap”.
Trump’s threat to take advantage of the shutdown to cut the federal workforce and regulatory framework may not be wildly popular at the moment, after the aggressive reductions implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency in the spring. But with the midterm elections still over 13 months away, he could well accomplish his major goal of reducing the size of the federal government while successfully assigning blame to Democrats for creating the situation. If politics is the art of the possible, the script on government shutdowns may well already have been flipped.