After 39 long days of the Democrat-engineered government shutdown, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has had enough. Speaking from the Capitol on Saturday, Thune made it clear that senators won’t be packing their bags for the weekend until the government is reopened. “We’re staying here until it’s done,” he said — a statement that’s bound to make a few career politicians uncomfortable.
This all comes after the House passed a clean continuing resolution (CR) back in September to keep the government funded through November 21. Republicans did their job. But Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have blocked that same bill fifteen times. That’s right — fifteen. And now the shutdown has officially become the longest in American history, all thanks to Schumer’s political grandstanding.
The reason? Democrats want to turn the shutdown into a campaign prop. They triggered it to force a “national conversation” on healthcare, believing it would give them an edge heading into off-year elections. In other words, millions of federal workers and American families are suffering because Chuck Schumer wanted better midterm messaging.
To make matters worse, Schumer is now demanding a guaranteed one-year extension of the COVID-era Obamacare subsidies — a blatant attempt to keep the issue alive through the next election cycle. Thune, unsurprisingly, called that proposal a “non-starter.” And he’s right. Why should Republicans bail out a broken healthcare system that Democrats use as a political talking point instead of fixing it?
So far, only three senators — John Fetterman (D-PA), Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NM), and Angus King (I-ME) — have broken ranks with Schumer to vote with Republicans to reopen the government. Three out of fifty-one. That’s how deep the partisan lockstep runs on the Democrat side.
Meanwhile, Thune and his GOP colleagues are still offering reasonable compromises, including a guaranteed vote on the expiring Obamacare subsidy extensions. But Democrats continue to stall, proving they’re more interested in soundbites than solutions.
The Senate Republican Conference will meet again Sunday to chart a path forward, but Thune’s message couldn’t be clearer: there will be no more weekends off, no more delay, and no more excuses until Schumer and his caucus end this self-inflicted crisis.
At this point, it’s obvious who’s fighting to reopen the government and who’s fighting to protect their political theater.
As usual, Republicans are doing the work — while Democrats are doing the talking.
