Democrats For Government Shutdowns

March 12, 2025

FLASH: Trump defeats hypocritical Democrats, Continuing Resolution to keep the government running until the end of September passed the House 217-213 with libertarian

Republican Thomas Massie voting against and Democrat Jared Golden voting for it.

Conservatives have generally not been afraid of so-called government shutdowns, arguing trimming government back to the “essential services” kept going during the shutdown was a good thing. Democrats generally argued against shutdowns, until President Trump was elected.

Now, reversing John Kerry’s famous phrase, “I was for it before I was against it,” Democrats who have long railed against government shutdowns are now suddenly for them.

President Donald J. Trump is back in office and Democrats are willing to do ANYTHING to stop Republicans from implementing his agenda.

And we’ve seen this farce before.

The last time there was more than a technical shutdown was the 2018 government shutdown, which lasted from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, making it the longest in U.S. history at 35 days.

It occurred due to a funding dispute over President Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion for a border wall, which Democrats and cheap labor Republicans opposed.

Now, we are seeing a similar policy dispute driving a shutdown, with Democrats firmly opposed to continuing funding the government at what spending hawks could credibly argue are Joe Biden levels of spending.

Indeed, the general spending levels in the current bill were supported by many Democrats during a vote back in December of 2024, just three months ago.

“I have very good news for my colleagues and for the country,” the Senate’s Democrat Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in announcing that the Senate would pass a House-approved Continuing Resolution.

“The House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy and hurting the working class Americans all across the nation,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said after Democrats put up more votes than Republicans did to pass the bill.

Now, even the House Freedom Caucus – the extreme MAGA Republicans Democrat Leader Jeffries regularly maligns – are on board with the plan agreed by Speaker Johnson and President and are even urging their GOP colleagues to vote for it.

“This bill will reduce and then freeze spending for the next six months to allow President Trump and his administration to continue their critical work within the executive branch to find and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse,” the caucus said in a statement on Monday night.

The bill has the support of principled limited government constitutional conservative Republican Chip Roy, one of the Freedom Caucus’s most outspoken spending hawks. He argued the bill largely keeps spending at last year’s levels and sets up future cuts.

Now that the measure has passed the House, it will require the help of at least seven Democrats to clear the Senate where 60 votes will be needed. Already Pennsylvania moderate Democrat John Fetterman has said he would vote for the stopgap bill to prevent a shutdown.

President Donald Trump has endorsed the bill, which would add $6 billion to defense and $440 million for immigration enforcement while cutting Internal Revenue Service funds by $20 billion.

The Capitol Switchboard is (202-224-3121), call your Senators TODAY to demand that they vote YES on the Continuing Resolution supported by Speaker Johnson and President Trump.