Lay-offs. Parks closed. Rubbish piling up. Disruption at airports. Everyone in Washington can agree that a government shutdown is a problem for the public. The question dividing the capital is who is going to carry the blame this time around?
As DC endures its first shutdown for seven years after Republicans and Democrats failed to agree a funding deal, battle lines are being drawn.
Since lawmakers failed on Wednesday for a second day to agree on bills to fund the government, the expectation is that the shutdown will run on for several days, if not more. The last one — under the first Trump administration — broke a record for the longest, at 34 days.
“There will be a lot of drinking,” one Republican predicted. “There are going to be a lot of government employees with nothing to do.” Bars across the city have starting bringing out special shutdown menus to tempt customers — with the Maga hotspot Butterworths serving $10 “Furlough-ritas”.
The shutdown affects national parks and airports as well as offices
JOHN LOCHER/AP
Neither side is sure when things might calm down, so both parties are focused on trying to win the public vote. Democrats are still stung from the backlash Chuck Schumer, the party’s leader in the Senate, received in March for voting to pass a Republican-led bill to avoid a shutdown. At the time, senior Democrats worried it could empower President Trump and Elon Musk, then chief of Doge, to unilaterally slash government services.
• Why has the US government shut down and how long will it last?
The Democrats are hopeful that they have the winning hand on the grounds that they are not in charge at present. Several polls have suggested voters will naturally blame the governing party rather than the Democrats for the funding lapse — even if there is anger at both sides.
When it comes to why the government has shut down this time, the main issue is healthcare. The Democrats are holding out on voting for the spending bill in the hope of reversing cuts to Medicaid and extending Obamacare subsidies. In response, the Republicans are claiming the Democrats (“and their Fake News allies”) are shutting down the government to fund free healthcare for illegal immigrants.
Republicans have tried to pin the blame on their rivals
In a sign that Republicans want to have a political fight, JD Vance has been leading the charge, saying: “It’s not something that we made up. It’s not a talking point. It is in the text of the bill that they initially gave to us to reopen the government.”
The issue is already one of importance for both sides. Trump has talked of lowering health costs as a key plank of his agenda. On Wednesday his spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said: “If Democrats actually cared about healthcare, they would applaud the actions taken by President Trump.”
But the Democrats see an opening that could help them in next year’s midterm elections and beyond. As Schumer put it on Wednesday: “We are going to be fighting everywhere on TV stations like yours, in the social media, in picketing, in protesting, in emails, in every way … and when the average American says, ‘Why the heck did I get a bill that raises my health care costs, doubles them’, we’re going to be pointing out it’s the Republicans who did it.”
It is not clear, however, that the whole party agrees. Already there are signs that Democrat support is fraying.
So far three Senate Democrats have broken with their party and voted to stop a shutdown. This includes the independent-minded Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, who said he would not vote for “the chaos of shuttering our government”. He added: “My vote was our country over my party. Together, we must find a better way forward.”
• Who is affected by the US government shutdown?
But the intervention that is the talk in Democrat circles comes from Catherine Cortez Masto, senator for Nevada. Explaining her reasons for diverging from the party line, Cortez said the party should avoid a costly shutdown “that would harm Nevadans and hand power to a reckless administration”.
She added: “There’s an economic slowdown we’re concerned about. There’s, like I said, a looming healthcare crisis. That’s where our focus should be.” This is being read in some quarters as a sign that Schumer’s health attacks are not enough for some Democrats.
One DC veteran noted: “The Republican Party has always been better at going on the attack and holding firm. The Democrats can struggle under pressure.”
As the Senate’s majority leader, John Thune, insists Republicans “are not going to be held hostage” by the Democrats’ demands, the blame game goes on. For the Democrats, it will be harder to win if support within their own ranks is fraying.