Darn. It looks like the government won't be shutting down after all, after Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) signaled he would break with his party and vote for the GOP spending bill after all, which funds the government through the end of September.
The day prior, he had said that his party was "unified" in its opposition to the bill. It's not totally clear what changed. "For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option," he said in a speech on the Senate floor. "It is not a clean CR [continuing resolution]. It is deeply partisan. It doesn't address far too many of this country's needs. But I believe allowing [President] Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option. I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down."
Schumer is probably correct that a shutdown wouldn't be especially bad for Republicans, who are already focused on slashing the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—a point I've made in multiple recent Roundups. We're already in the era of "malicious compliance," in which bureaucrats try to make the "most painful cuts possible" to prove to the general public how essential they are (or how essential they believe themselves to be). "It's like when there was a two-day government shutdown and they ostentatiously closed the government parks surrounding D.C. and put chains up so the media could come and take video," said Randy Barnett recently on Just Asking Questions. It's quite possible that a full government shutdown—which never actually shuts down the government, but instead furloughs some 900,000 people (who later receive back pay) while 1.4 million continue working—could backfire by giving the Trump administration and Elon Musk more ideas about which departments and agencies to shutter.
