Democrats Poised to Shut Down Government

The House has passed a continuing resolution to keep the federal government operating until September. The CR will be helpful to the Trump administration because it increases defense spending, while reducing other domestic spending:

If signed into law, H.R. 1968 would allow for federal operations to continue for another 6 months, until September. Typically, a “clean” continuing resolution would just hold current government spending levels steady, providing for more time for the full appropriations process to continue. However, H.R. 1968 would also make changes to current spending levels, with an increase in defense spending of $6 billion, and $13 billion in cuts to domestic spending. The bill also includes provisions that would give the Trump administration significantly more leeway to spend federal dollars without Congressional approval.

The current crisis in Washington is driven largely by the fact that the Trump administration, led by DOGE, doesn’t want to spend many billions of dollars that Congress has appropriated to various departments and agencies, and bureaucrats have allocated among specific programs, often in ways that are absurdly wasteful or even antithetical to our national interests.

Can the executive decline to spend money that Congress has appropriated? Contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court has never ruled on this constitutional issue. More narrowly, can the president redirect money that Congress has designated for one program into a different program, if he finds that the original program is wasteful, riddled with fraud, or contrary to the national interest? Again, we may be in uncharted waters, but he certainly can reverse an allocation that was done by bureaucrats, rather than Congress.

For the time being, I take it that the CR will give the Trump administration breathing space: the first $13 billion in DOGE cuts will have been authorized by Congress.

The Democrats can’t stand the idea of any government spending being cut, no matter how absurdly wasteful it may be (e.g., the famous transgender opera in Colombia). So they are prepared to shut down the federal government rather than allow a single dollar to be cut:

Senate Democrats left a private meeting Wednesday saying there aren’t enough votes to advance the short-term funding bill that passed the House on Tuesday.
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This raises the chances of a government shutdown this weekend. Democrats are in the unusual position of being willing to risk a shutdown to negotiate a better deal with Republicans.

Go ahead, Dems: shut it down. That will make a mockery of their many claims that temporary pauses in funding for various programs by the Trump administration will cause orphans to starve, medical research to come to an end, and so on.

Meanwhile, what the Democrats propose to do about our $37 trillion national debt remains a mystery.