Donald Trump would own a government shutdown

Washington is four days away from running out of money to fund the government and once again, Congress is no closer to a deal to keep the lights on. If this all feels familiar, that's because it is. The government runs out of money at the end of September to mark the end of the fiscal year and usually, there is a protracted government funding fight until in the final hours of September 30, Congress reaches an agreement to pass a short-term stopgap spending bill.

This is not the case so far. Congress has been out of session since last week, after the House passed a continuing resolution with no input from Democrats, which Democrats opposed in the House. Democrats have hoped that they could use a continuing resolution as leverage to extend expanded subsidies for Affordable Care Act marketplace initially put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic. But this has not been the case. At the last minute on Tuesday, President Donald Trump canceled a planned meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a rage.

This came after Trump essentially said on Fox & Friends this month "We need to get Republican votes, that's all." That's objectively not true. Appropriations bills require 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster, with the goal of making the appropriations process bipartisan. But Russell Vought, the director of the Trump administration's Office of Management and Budget, has explicitly tossed out that idea.

Now, Trump is hoping to lay the blame on a government shutdown at the feet of the Democrats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has done the same. "I think they think it is politically advantageous to them right now, and a benefit to their political fortunes, which are frankly in the tank at the moment," he said. "And they see this as an opportunity to be grabbed. But I think they're wrong, and I think people are going to disagree with that." Thune's office also put out a memo showing that "The American Public Does Not Support Democrats Shutting Down the Government." But the memo doesn't explicitly show that. Rather, it just shows what everyone already knows: government shutdowns are not popular and the Democratic Party is probably less popular, which is driven as much by Democratic voters hating their party as it is independents and Republicans disliking the brand.

But this will not matter at all. Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. They determine which legislation goes to the floor for a vote and when. They could at any moment, begin negotiations with the Democrats instead of forcing them to eat it. That means that if a government shutdown happens, it's because Republicans controlled the process and put forward legislation that they knew would not be acceptable to Democrats. They know that Democrats feel that Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Thune rolled them-particularly Schumer-last time Congress passed a continuing resolution and Democrats have every reason to oppose this one.

But the fact remains, they still control the process and Republicans on the Hill have given up any semblance of independence and do whatever Trump asks of them. The American people will be aware of it as well. They saw Republicans confirm all of Trump's nominees, save for Matt Gaetz, who never received a vote. They saw them ram through his tax cut bill and even rename it the "One Big, Beautiful Bill," specifically because he asked them to. Nobody needs to pretend this ramming through spending bills would not come directly from the White House.

Trump faced resounding criticism when he shut down the government in late 2018 in a halt that lasted into 2019. The same will likely happen this time. He can grumble about the Democrats this whole time, he can say they are being unreasonable. But it's on him and the Republicans to actually put forward legislation that can get the votes or tell Republicans to eliminate the filibuster, in which case, he will also be responsible.