The hollow resistance of the CR debacle

Tell the truth, and pick fights you can win

Just moments ago, the Senate passed a Continuing Resolution, or “CR,” to fund the government through the end of September. Despite outcry from progressive activists, 10 Democratic and Independent Senators provided the necessary votes to get the bill over the last procedural hurdle necessary to advance the funding and avert a harmful government shutdown. They should be commended for their leadership.

A government shutdown was always a bad idea, not only for the usual reasons of furloughed federal workers, shuttered agencies, and uncertainty over programs like health care and food assistance, but because it would supercharge the chaos and dysfunction we’re already seeing in Washington. If you think President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s chainsawing of the federal government is bad now, just wait until you see how much they could put on ice with the expanded executive authority of a government shutdown.

With that authority and with GOP leaders able to make a credible case that it was Democrats who voted to shut down the government, there would be little incentive for Trump or the Republicans to come back to the table and negotiate a better deal. This was only ever going to end one way.

This CR should have been noncontroversial. It funds the government based on appropriations levels set last year under President Biden with the approval of most Democrats. That’s not to say the CR is perfect or even worth celebrating; We can do better than the status quo. But it is likely the best case-scenario for Democrats at a time when we are in the minority in Congress and out of power in the White House.

But before today, I was the only Democrat who voted to keep the government open. Given the choice between the harms of a shutdown and passing a CR that continued federal spending at Biden-era levels, the choice was easy.

Leading from the rear

That’s not to say I necessarily blame the rank-and-file Democrats who voted “no” on the CR.

With so many Democrats representing solidly blue districts, Democratic leaders are feeling the heat from progressive activists who want to see their members of Congress fighting the administration.

But instead of leading members toward winnable fights, I watched this week as House Democratic leaders buckled to pressure from the progressive base to stage a dramatic political skirmish that they could not win. To sell the act, they misled members and poured gas on the fire of voter anger with claims that the CR contained cuts and poison pills that simply did not exist. These are just the worst examples:

• They purposefully conflated the CR with the House GOP’s harmful reconciliation agenda. Leaders used vague messaging to blur the difference between these separate pieces of legislation, leading Americans to believe that a vote to keep the government open (the CR) was a vote to take away health care and cut taxes for the wealthy (the House GOP’s reconciliation bill, which I voted against). In truth, the CR increased state Medicaid grants and contained no tax policy at all.

• They used accounting gimmicks to suggest the CR cut funding for veterans when it did not. The CR continued funding for veterans care at current levels, and increased funding to fill a shortfall in a program that supports health care for toxin-exposed veterans. But House Democrats on the Appropriations Committee as well as Democratic Leadership purposefully misled the public by comparing the CR to funding levels that passed the House last Congress, but never became law. It was like saying you got a pay cut because you asked for a raise but didn’t get it.

• They claimed this bill gave President Trump and DOGE more leeway to cut agency budgets and fire federal workers, when it did not. The CR contained no language expanding impoundment powers. Anything that was illegal for the president to do before this CR is still illegal afterward. If anything, by continuing current funding levels, it clarifies Congressional intent to see these programs and services funded. That’s no small thing in the president’s ongoing legal battles over cuts and layoffs.

Maybe Democratic leaders thought that if they could gin up enough fear through misdirection and accounting gimmicks, they could prevent Republicans from passing the CR on their own. If so, they were wrong. They convinced members to vote to shut down the government, hoping that the optics of resistance would satisfy the progressive base, even though they failed to make the case that they had any leverage or strategy to actually win the fight in a shutdown. Given the options on the table and the cards we had in hand, it was never a fight worth having. At moments like these leaders should heed the maxim, “How you catch them is how you must lead them.” In other words, if you win support with political theater or unwarranted fear, you will find yourself captive to those tactics.

The good news is that despite their efforts, baseline government funding is secured. Now, Democrats can move on to the only kind of fight worth having — one we can actually win.

Uniting to protect health care and block tax cuts for the wealthy

The good news is that now, with baseline government funding secured and a damaging, chaotic shutdown averted, Democrats can move on — hopefully with a solid plan and a united front — to the fight that we should be eager to have: Preventing the GOP from slashing taxes for the rich, taking health care away from millions of Americans, and blowing up the federal deficit.

Unlike in the CR, these proposals are all contained in the GOP’s reconciliation plan. Despite the lower threshold to pass a reconciliation bill in the Senate, this fight is fertile ground for Democrats to build power and win. That’s because the public is on our side.

This agenda is as unpopular as it ever has been. Remember the reckoning after the 2017 tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy, and from the GOP’s disastrous attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We know the public will not abide the reverse-Robin Hood agenda of taking from the poor and middle class to give to the wealthy.

With such tight margins, the GOP will struggle to keep together a majority for such an unpopular and divisive plan. We know they’re worried, too, because they’re already turning to accounting gimmicks and smokescreens to hide the true costs of their proposals — the same kind of tactics Democratic leaders just used to try to build cover for a vote to shut down the government. We will have the moral high ground to call them out and hold them accountable for the scam they are pushing on the American people. And if they do manage to pass this bogus agenda on their own, Democrats can make sure they pay a price in 2026.

Democrats can fight to protect health care, prioritize tax breaks for the working class, not the wealthy, and lower the deficit. That’s a fight we can win.