Spending Levels Are Already A Compromise With Democrats

As the government shutdown enters a second week, it is prudent to take stock of how we got here. 

From the start, conservatives have acted in good faith, even pushing the limits of their own fiscal comfort in an effort to keep the government fully open and operating while allowing negotiations to proceed for a full-year spending plan. 

The evidence is overwhelming and clear: House Republicans passed a clean continuing resolution (CR) at the last enacted Biden spending levels. 

Now, Democrats are pushing for an unserious, radical set of policy changes to secure their votes for the clean CR – proposals that would add another $1.5 trillion to the debt. 

Here’s the issue: this isn’t a stalemate between two parties that have each pushed their own agendas as the only way to open the conversation. The truth of the matter is the clean CR already was the short-term compromise between Republican and Democratic lawmakers. According to House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., this was a bipartisan deal struck by appropriators — and then abandoned after the fact by Democratic leadership to gain political points.

If the House had dug in on its real position before passing a bill, we would be even further apart. The House’s topline spending level is about $2 billion below the last enacted levels. In other words, House Republicans actually want a $2 billion cut from the clean CR, but they were willing to allow the government to continue operating while details were worked out.

In response to that honest deal by House Republicans, Senate Democrats blocked the clean CR and insisted on $1.5 trillion in unrelated spending on top of the static discretionary spending levels. For example, Democrats expect Republicans to undo the major Medicaid reforms made in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including removing illegal aliens from Medicaid. They are also demanding that Republicans vote to expand the pandemic-era Covid Credits that plus-up Obamacare subsidies, funding health insurance plans that cover elective abortions and transgender surgeries. These expectations are entirely outside the bounds of reality. 

This is not a debate about where to land between a clean CR and Democrats’ priorities. This is a blockade of a mechanism advanced in good faith that would have allowed the government to continue operating fully while the actual deal was negotiated — a deal that would see House Republicans start from a position of offering $2 billion less. 

The real middle ground lies somewhere between Republicans’ $2 billion less than the clean CR and Democrats’ $1.5 trillion more.

That Congressional Democrats cannot even stick to programs germane to appropriations bills in a short-term CR fight is no surprise, given that they are shirking any responsibility to behave like adults who made a gentleman’s agreement. 

Republicans in Congress and President Trump have all the leverage right now, as the party is not trying to force a policy change. Given Democrats’ bad faith actions and unhinged policy demands, they should use it. 

Keeping unified and rejecting any alternative to the House-passed clean CR is the most fiscally responsible path forward at this point. Only once the lapse in appropriations has passed can discussions continue on full-year spending plans. 

At that point, Congressional Republicans would be wise to make some demands of their own and institute common-sense cuts that appropriately respond to the grim reality of our nation’s $37 trillion debt and a rapidly approaching fiscal red line.

Until then, and until Congressional Democrats decide to start dealing in good faith, shut ‘er down. Because the American taxpayer deserves better than the unserious pandering we’re getting in the meantime.

Brittany A. Madni is the executive vice president of the Economic Policy Innovation Center.