WASHINGTON — The federal government shutdown that began at midnight has Democrats distraught but Republicans divided on Capitol Hill, with some in the GOP looking for an easy off ramp even as others salivate over the opportunities a shutdown provides.
“Feeling good,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story Tuesday, through a broad smile.
“Go ahead and start combining agencies and cutting back on the bureaucrats and open up a few jobs.”
With President Donald Trump promising to use the shutdown for just such a federal government facelift, other Republicans are calling for cooler heads in the White House.
“They need to be careful with the use of that power,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Raw Story. “Because at the end of the day, we have to come out of a shutdown.”
“Careful” seems to be missing from the lexicon of this 119th Congress, which is why fears of an extended shutdown loom large.
‘CEO of the country’
Last week, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed federal agencies to forgo as many furloughs as possible and instead implement mass layoffs throughout the government in the event of a shutdown.
That’s now here.
On Monday, talks with congressional Democrats sputtered and stalled out. On Tuesday, the president doubled down on the OMB’s painful promises.
“The Democrats want to shut it down, so when you shut it down, you have to do layoffs,” Trump said in the Oval Office, flanked by cabinet members. “So we'd be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected.”
If the government is to reopen, a bipartisan funding measure must ultimately pass the Senate and its 60-vote threshold. But instead of looking for a way to get the government’s lights back on, the more MAGA-wing of that chamber is encouraging Trump to turn rhetoric into a harsh new reality for an already beleaguered federal workforce, even in the face of critics.
“Can’t worry about that,” said Sen. Tuberville, who’s running for governor of Alabama. “[Trump] told everybody what he’s going to do.
“We’re gonna get blamed anyway. Don't make any difference. Y'all blame us for everything that happens, so we might as well take credit for it.”
Tuberville’s far from alone.
“Do you think the president will be empowered if the government shuts down?” Raw Story asked Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), a former Florida governor, on Tuesday as the clock ticked.
“Yeah,” Scott said. “When I was governor, they were talking about not passing a budget…”
Scott was hopping an elevator in the Capitol, so he didn’t have time to get into the details of his 2017 impasse with Florida’s GOP-controlled Senate.
In short, it was a dark, drawn out and very dirty brawl.
After a bipartisan deal was struck averting what would have been an embarrassing shutdown, Scott exacted legislative revenge and vetoed some 400 projects, including many earmarked by GOP senators who opposed his budget — an unprecedented number of vetos in the modern era, according to the Associated Press.
All told, Scott’s vetoes slashed a whopping 14 percent from the budget he had just negotiated with legislative rivals from his own party.
“You have latitude,” Scott recalled, before offering unsolicited advice to President Trump. “You're still the CEO of the country.”
Trump seems to have gotten that memo from his right flank, and that has moderate Republicans worried.
‘A steeper hill’
While moderates are close to extinct in Washington, the few remaining voices from the middle seem to be the only hope of getting the government back up and running. That has many cautioning calm from the Oval Office and cabinet members alike.
“I would hate to make it even more difficult to get consensus, and so they have to be very judicious in the exercise of their power,” Sen. Tillis told Raw Story. “Otherwise it just creates a steeper hill.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) speaks to the press. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
Tillis is retiring next year, but in the meantime he’s reminding colleagues that Article I of the Constitution puts Congress in the driver’s seat when it comes to federal spending.
Tillis wants to find a way out of this impasse ASAP, in part because shutdowns empower the executive branch, whose powers are laid out in Article II of the Constitution.
“I'll be honest with you, as a member of the Article I branch, I'm not really excited about a lot of leeway for the Article II branch,” Tillis said. “I'm kind of old-fashioned that way. I like us being responsible for spending and that sort of thing.”
But a part of the reason the government shut down is because Democrats accuse this GOP-controlled Congress of ceding too much congressional authority to Trump and unelected administrators such as former Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE) head Elon Musk, who was given free reign to slash the federal workforce and impound appropriated funds.
‘Gone rogue’
That’s why Democrats were unmoved by arguments that a government shutdown would empower the administration.
“They do that anyway,” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s votes that failed to avert the shutdown.
“They got rid of the Department of Education. So like whether we pass this or not, [Trump’s] going to do whatever he wants.”
Sen. Peter Welch, (D-VT) said: “You've got a president who's just not staying within the lines of the Constitution, so it's really undercut confidence that this is an on level negotiation.
“The reality is we've got extraordinary disorder in the constitutional system.”
That disorder is now on full display, as the shutdown saga continues.
“He's directed the Republicans not to speak to us,” Welch said. “He's gone rogue on assuming Congress' taxing authority with these arbitrary tariffs. He's done the same with the Justice Department, going after people without evidence.”
