Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday he will vote for a Republican bill to fund federal agencies through September to avoid government shutdowns.
Schumer’s comments suggest that his members are ready to provide the necessary votes to clear the procedural hurdles, allowing the seven-month spending measure to proceed to the final vote.
In a floor speech, Schumer called Senate Democrats “Hobson’s Choice,” and under pressure from his House counterparts to thwart measures passed at home that he claimed was giving Donald Trump too much discretion to spending decisions. But after a tense few days of closure meeting, Schumer said he believes the shutdown, which will eventually begin in the middle of the night, will carry “a much worse American outcome.”
He told Trump and Musk that the shutdown would “calt blanche will destroy important government services at a much faster rate than it is now.”
“Under the closure, the Trump administration will have the full authority to consider the entire agency, the program, and staff who denounce the entire staff, without a promise to be re-employed,” Schumer expanded his rationale, expanding his rationale the day after his party was ready to hold off their votes to force their votes to force the table to support him.
Senate Republicans are often shy about the 60-vote threshold required to advance the law, holding a narrow majority of 53 seats. Senator Rand Paul, a stubborn fiscal hawk, shows his opposition to the House bill. That means eight Democrats will need to support the bill to overcome the procedural hurdles to reach the final vote in the chamber.
The 99-page House Pass Measures will increase the military budget of $6 billion while cutting $13 billion from non-defensive spending. Democrats are the equivalent of assault on key programs for vulnerable Americans.
From the annual House Democrat Caucus Retreat in Leesburg, Virginia, House Democrats urged Senate counterparts to oppose the bill. All but one House Democrat voted against it on Tuesday.
For a week, Senate Democrats have been fighting publicly and personally over the vote. Republicans have stepped up the attack, warning Democrats are blamed on the unpopular government shutdown, despite the GOP holding the DDP’s governed trilogy. Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman has previously announced his support for the bill, but Sen. Reuben Gallego, a Democrat of Arizona, said he will vote Thursday.
“Don’t make yourself a child. This is a bad resolution that will grant permission to Elon Musk and his peers to continue to cut down the profits of veterans, reduce resources for Arizona’s water needs and abandon wild firefighters,” Gallego said in a statement. “I can’t stand it.”
Progressive activists quickly condemned the move by Schumer, urging Democrats to not follow his lead and “subord” Trump and Republicans.
“This is a weak (strategic) move driven by fear and learned helplessness,” says Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-director of Indivisible, who led many of the anti-Trump and rebel protests. “Don’t follow him. He leads the party irrelevant, helping Trump and Musk in the process.”
