As of Thursday afternoon, the United States Government shutdown had passed the 36-hour mark. The clock is still ticking. And now, the Trump administration is warning that firings of federal employees are “likely going to be in the thousands,” if the Senate does not work to pass a bill. DC's engines of blame are firing ferociously, and there seems to be little hope of charting a path forward out of this mess.
To pass the bill, Senate Republicans need 5 more Democratic votes. The Senate is scheduled to vote again on Friday, but there is little hope that the vote will change the current course.
Steve Scalise, House Majority Speaker and Louisiana's 1st congressional district representative, joined WWL to explain the current state of the government shutdown.
According to Scalise, leftists choosing to stymie the bill are motivated largely by ideological rigidity and spite for Donald Trump.
“Chuck Schumer and his far left base — it's not most mainstream democrats, it's the far-left radicals — they want to see Chuck Schumer fighting Donald Trump," says Scalise. "They don't know what they want in the fight; they just want to fight with Donald Trump.”
The result, Scalise says, is an unfortunate reality for Americans caught in the crossfire, such as US troops who will go unpaid. He also notes how the shutdown specifically impacts his constituents in Southeast Louisiana.
“Men and women in uniform do not get paid during a shutdown," Scalise explains. "Things like the National Flood Insurance Program are now lapsed during a shutdown, so if you're trying to close on the house in Southeast Louisiana, if you are in a flood zone, you need flood insurance; you can't even close on a house today because the government is shut down now. Of course, in the bill we passed through the house, it keeps the flood insurance program going.”
Meanwhile, Republicans are refusing to bend to the demands of Schumer’s alternative bill. The reason, Scalise says, is that it includes a “One point five trillion in new spending completely unrelated to anything anybody's negotiated. Plus, he also, in his bill, repealed a whole lot of the provisions of what's called now the working families tax cut, one of those provisions that repealed the verifications we put in place to make sure that people here illegally don't get taxpayer-funded benefits... that's a two hundred billion dollar item alone.”
Scalise notes that while Schumer and Senate Democrats bemoan the shutdown, citing a refusal by Trump to work with them, all they're doing is handing more power over to Trump in the interim.
“Over the years, Congress has given more power away to the executive branch during a shutdown; almost all of the power of the purse goes to the president," Sclaise explains. "So, ironically, Chuck Schumer, by shutting the government down because he wants to fight with Donald Trump, is giving more power to Trump. So it just doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's where things are right now. Trump literally gets to determine... what is essential to fund and what is not.”
Scalise states his hopes to pass a bill soon and reopen the government. However, he thinks it's unlikely, and claims Schumer's stubbornness arises from grievances connected to the outcome of the 2024 election.
“That’s really what Chuck Schumer’s most upset about: Donald Trump won the election," Scalise says. "Well, guess what? The election was last year. This isn’t the time to relitigate the election. Don't have a tantrum and shut down the government and hold our troops hostage and everything else because you're upset with the election from last year. We've got to move on.”
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