HEY SCHUMER;
The CR Would Cut Taxes for Billionaires and Slash Funding for the Working Class Bernie Sanders
March 14, 2025
Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair
As people all over this country understand, we are a nation that faces enormous crises.
Sadly, the continuing resolution passed Tuesday in the U.S. House, which will come to this body very shortly, not only does nothing to address these crises, but in fact, it makes a bad situation much worse.
Today, at a time when we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of this country, 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck.
And that means that people are worried about how they are going to afford housing. What happens if their landlord raises the rent?
People go to the grocery store and they see the high price of food, and they wonder how they are going to feed their kids.
People are looking at the outrageous cost of child care, but you need child care if you are going to go to work. How can you afford child care?
Our health care system is dysfunctional. People worry about how they can afford health care, if they are lucky enough to find a doctor.
That is the reality of what is going on in our county today: the rich are getting richer, working people are struggling, and 800,000 Americans are sleeping out in the streets.
So given that reality, what does this bill do? The bill written by right-wing extremists in the House of Representatives without any bipartisan discussion at all.
What does this bill do? Well, let me count the ways that it makes their financial struggles of working people even more difficult than they are today. And it does all of that to lay the groundwork for massive tax breaks for Elon Musk and the billionaire class.
For a start, some 22% of seniors in this country are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less. Half of our seniors are trying to survive on $30,000 or less. So what does the Trump/Musk administration do to address the terrible economic pressures on seniors all over America? Well, they have a brilliant idea: they illegally fire thousands of workers at the Social Security Administration, with plans to cut that staff in half.
In America today, 30,000 people die each year waiting to receive their Social Security disability benefits because of a grossly understaffed and under-resourced Social Security Administration.
My office gets calls every day from seniors saying, “I’m having a problem with Social Security. I can’t contact the Social Security people. They’re not getting back to me.” And that is because, today, they are understaffed.
If Musk and Trump get their way and the Social Security Administration’s staff is cut in half, nobody can deny that is a death sentence for many thousands of seniors who desperately need their benefits.
Now, Mr. Musk, who is worth a few hundred billion, may not understand that there are millions of seniors in this country who have nothing in the bank, worrying every day how they are going to heat their homes or buy the food that they need. And if they can’t get the benefits that they need, some of them will, in fact, die.
And let me be clear: When you have Mr. Musk calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” despite the fact that it has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the last 86 years. That ain’t no Ponzi scheme.
When you have the President lying about millions of people who are 150 or 200 years of age receiving Social Security benefits – a total lie – everybody should understand what’s going on. Trump and Musk are laying the groundwork for the dismantling of the most successful federal program in history, a program that keeps over 27 million Americans out of poverty. And, by the way, over 99% of the more than 70 million Social Security checks that go out each month are going to people who earned those benefits.
But this continuing resolution passed in the House is not just a vicious attack on Social Security. It is an attack on the veterans of our nation – the men and women who put their lives on the line defending our country.
While we made some progress under the Biden administration in improving veterans’ health care, the truth is that the VA has remained significantly understaffed. In the fourth quarter of 2024, there were 36,000 vacancies at the VA. We needed 2,400 more doctors, 6,300 more registered nurses, 3,400 more schedulers, 1,800 more social workers, and 1,200 more custodians. So what has the Trump administration and Mr. Musk done to address this very serious workforce shortage?
Their answer is that they are threatening to dismantle the VA by firing 83,000 employees. In other words, you have a shortage today, and their solution to the shortage is to fire 83,000 workers.
Not only does the CR do nothing to stop that, but it cuts more than $20 billion in funding needed to provide care for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances next year.
Pathetically, our nation, the richest country on Earth, has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major nation on the planet, and that is often reflected in the crises facing many public schools today. Throughout America, children are coming into school hungry. Kids are coming into school with serious mental issues. Kids are coming into school from dysfunctional families. And what is the Trump/Musk administration doing about that crisis?
Well, their response was interesting. Just the other day, they fired half of the staff at the Department of Education. That means that it will be far harder to administer the Title I program that helps 26 million low-income kids get the education they need and pays the salaries of some 180,000 public school teachers throughout the country.
So how does a school in a working-class community survive if you don’t get the funds to pay the teachers?
Further, it means that it will be far harder to administer the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that provides vital resources for 7.5 million kids with disabilities. We have made progress in a bipartisan way over the last number of years to say to families: if your kid has a disability, that kid can still go to a public school, and there will be services available for that kid. But when you cut the Department of Education staff here in Washington in half, that is going to be extremely difficult to do.
And it means it will be far harder for some 7 million low-income and working-class students to get the Pell Grants they need to get a higher education.
In fact, just hours after the Department of Education laid off half of its staff, the website for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid that working families use to apply for Pell Grants and other financial assistance crashed.
This CR gives the Trump administration the green light to make these horrific cuts to education. And it’s not just education.
We have a major healthcare crisis in America today. Despite spending twice as much per capita on health care as the people of any other major country, 85 million Americans are uninsured or under-insured, over 500,000 of our people go bankrupt because of medically-related debt, over 60,000 people die each year because they can’t afford to get to a doctor on time and our life expectancy is not only lower than almost any other major country, it is a system in which working-class and low-income Americans die 7 years younger than wealthier Americans.
So you’ve got a crisis: People can’t find a doctor. People are going bankrupt because of health care bills. And what does this CR do?
Well, at a time when our primary health care system is completely broken, when we don’t have enough doctors or nurses or mental health counselors, this proposal cuts community health center funding by 3.2%, cuts the National Health Service Corps by over 5% and cuts funding for Teaching Health Centers — a program which helps train doctors in rural and underserved areas — by almost 13%.
In the midst of a horrific primary health care crisis in Vermont and all over rural America, this proposal will make it that much harder for people to get the health care they desperately need.
But it’s not just health care. Everyone in this country from Vermont to Los Angeles understands we have a major housing crisis. And it’s not just all the homelessness we are seeing. Over 20 million of our people spend more than 50% of their limited income on housing.
How in God’s name do you pay for anything else? How do you buy food? How do you take care of health care if you’re spending 50% or more for your housing.
So how does this CR address the housing crisis? It cuts rental assistance for low-income families in America by $700 million, which could lead to more than 32,000 families in our country being evicted from their homes. Well, that is a heck of a solution to the housing crisis.
But it’s not just housing.
I know that the president might disagree – he thinks that climate change is a hoax. But the whole scientific community understands that it is an existential threat. They understand that the last 10 years have been the warmest ever recorded, and extreme weather disturbances and natural disasters have been taking place all over the world – from California to India, across Europe, to North Carolina.
So what does the CR do about the existential threat of climate change?
It does not even specify funding levels within the Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, the administration could simply eliminate funding for climate change and environmental justice and that would be consistent with this CR.
And on top of all this, the administration is already indicating that they will simply ignore the provisions of the spending bill they don’t like.
This week, it was reported that Vice President JD Vance said to the Senate Republican caucus: “I want everyone to vote Yes. The President, under Section II, will ensure allocations from Congress are not spent on things that harm the taxpayer. There’s so much grift in Washington — let’s move this CR, get to reconciliation and for Congress to pass appropriations.”
In other words, what Vance is saying is don’t worry about what’s actually in the bill. If the Trump administration doesn’t like it, they won’t do it.
And let’s be clear: the House CR and the Trump administration are doing everything they can to lay the groundwork for more tax breaks for billionaires paid for by massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance, housing and education.
So you’re looking at a 1-2 punch: a very bad CR and then a reconciliation bill coming down which will be the final kick in the teeth for the American people.
This legislation that the Republicans are working on, the reconciliation bill, will cut taxes for billionaires and the top 1% by $1.1 trillion over the next decade.
According to a recent study, if all of Trump’s so-called “America First” policies are enacted, the bottom 95% of Americans will see their taxes go up, while the richest 5% in our country will see their taxes go down. Way down.
I should also mention that the reconciliation bill which Republicans are working on right now would also cut Medicaid by $880 billion.
Tax breaks for billionaires. Throwing low-income kids off health care. Decimating nursing homes all over America, because nursing homes receive two-thirds of their funding from Medicaid. Making it harder for community health centers to survive, who provide health care to 32 million Americans because 43% of their revenue comes from Medicaid.
Further, the reconciliation bill proposes to cut $230 billion from nutrition. Today, nearly one out of five children in America rely on federal nutrition programs to keep them from going hungry.
And I find it rather remarkable that the richest person on Earth and his oligarch friends are working night and day to cut programs for the working people of this country and to actually deny food to hungry kids in America.
There is no world, no universe, no religion that would not believe that that is grossly immoral and unacceptable. You don’t give tax breaks to the rich and take food away from hungry children.
The House CR bill that we will be soon voting on here is a piece of legislation I cannot support. Instead, what the Senate must do is pass a 30-day CR so that all members of Congress, not just the House Republican leadership, can come together and produce a good piece of legislation that works for all Americans and not just the few.
We have an opportunity now to serve the American people. We have an opportunity now to write something that reflects what people in the Congress feel, what people in America feel.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I held a telephone town hall in Vermont. We are a small state. We only have about 650,000 people. And yet on that telephone town hall there was some 34,000 people listening in. That is a significant percentage of a small state.
I have been in many parts of the country recently. I have been in Iowa, I’ve been in Wisconsin, I have been in Nebraska, I’ve been in Michigan. And what I can tell you with absolute certainty is, whether people are conservative, whether they’re Republican, whether they’re progressive, whether they’re moderate, Independent, whatever they may be. There are very few people in this country that think we should give tax breaks to the rich and cut back on Medicaid, education and nutritional programs for hungry children.
From Sanders’ prepared remarks for his senate floor speech on March 13, 2025.
Bernie Sanders is a US Senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress.
March 14, 2025
Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair
As people all over this country understand, we are a nation that faces enormous crises.
Sadly, the continuing resolution passed Tuesday in the U.S. House, which will come to this body very shortly, not only does nothing to address these crises, but in fact, it makes a bad situation much worse.
Today, at a time when we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of this country, 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck.
And that means that people are worried about how they are going to afford housing. What happens if their landlord raises the rent?
People go to the grocery store and they see the high price of food, and they wonder how they are going to feed their kids.
People are looking at the outrageous cost of child care, but you need child care if you are going to go to work. How can you afford child care?
Our health care system is dysfunctional. People worry about how they can afford health care, if they are lucky enough to find a doctor.
That is the reality of what is going on in our county today: the rich are getting richer, working people are struggling, and 800,000 Americans are sleeping out in the streets.
So given that reality, what does this bill do? The bill written by right-wing extremists in the House of Representatives without any bipartisan discussion at all.
What does this bill do? Well, let me count the ways that it makes their financial struggles of working people even more difficult than they are today. And it does all of that to lay the groundwork for massive tax breaks for Elon Musk and the billionaire class.
For a start, some 22% of seniors in this country are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less. Half of our seniors are trying to survive on $30,000 or less. So what does the Trump/Musk administration do to address the terrible economic pressures on seniors all over America? Well, they have a brilliant idea: they illegally fire thousands of workers at the Social Security Administration, with plans to cut that staff in half.
In America today, 30,000 people die each year waiting to receive their Social Security disability benefits because of a grossly understaffed and under-resourced Social Security Administration.
My office gets calls every day from seniors saying, “I’m having a problem with Social Security. I can’t contact the Social Security people. They’re not getting back to me.” And that is because, today, they are understaffed.
If Musk and Trump get their way and the Social Security Administration’s staff is cut in half, nobody can deny that is a death sentence for many thousands of seniors who desperately need their benefits.
Now, Mr. Musk, who is worth a few hundred billion, may not understand that there are millions of seniors in this country who have nothing in the bank, worrying every day how they are going to heat their homes or buy the food that they need. And if they can’t get the benefits that they need, some of them will, in fact, die.
And let me be clear: When you have Mr. Musk calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” despite the fact that it has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the last 86 years. That ain’t no Ponzi scheme.
When you have the President lying about millions of people who are 150 or 200 years of age receiving Social Security benefits – a total lie – everybody should understand what’s going on. Trump and Musk are laying the groundwork for the dismantling of the most successful federal program in history, a program that keeps over 27 million Americans out of poverty. And, by the way, over 99% of the more than 70 million Social Security checks that go out each month are going to people who earned those benefits.
But this continuing resolution passed in the House is not just a vicious attack on Social Security. It is an attack on the veterans of our nation – the men and women who put their lives on the line defending our country.
While we made some progress under the Biden administration in improving veterans’ health care, the truth is that the VA has remained significantly understaffed. In the fourth quarter of 2024, there were 36,000 vacancies at the VA. We needed 2,400 more doctors, 6,300 more registered nurses, 3,400 more schedulers, 1,800 more social workers, and 1,200 more custodians. So what has the Trump administration and Mr. Musk done to address this very serious workforce shortage?
Their answer is that they are threatening to dismantle the VA by firing 83,000 employees. In other words, you have a shortage today, and their solution to the shortage is to fire 83,000 workers.
Not only does the CR do nothing to stop that, but it cuts more than $20 billion in funding needed to provide care for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances next year.
Pathetically, our nation, the richest country on Earth, has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major nation on the planet, and that is often reflected in the crises facing many public schools today. Throughout America, children are coming into school hungry. Kids are coming into school with serious mental issues. Kids are coming into school from dysfunctional families. And what is the Trump/Musk administration doing about that crisis?
Well, their response was interesting. Just the other day, they fired half of the staff at the Department of Education. That means that it will be far harder to administer the Title I program that helps 26 million low-income kids get the education they need and pays the salaries of some 180,000 public school teachers throughout the country.
So how does a school in a working-class community survive if you don’t get the funds to pay the teachers?
Further, it means that it will be far harder to administer the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that provides vital resources for 7.5 million kids with disabilities. We have made progress in a bipartisan way over the last number of years to say to families: if your kid has a disability, that kid can still go to a public school, and there will be services available for that kid. But when you cut the Department of Education staff here in Washington in half, that is going to be extremely difficult to do.
And it means it will be far harder for some 7 million low-income and working-class students to get the Pell Grants they need to get a higher education.
In fact, just hours after the Department of Education laid off half of its staff, the website for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid that working families use to apply for Pell Grants and other financial assistance crashed.
This CR gives the Trump administration the green light to make these horrific cuts to education. And it’s not just education.
We have a major healthcare crisis in America today. Despite spending twice as much per capita on health care as the people of any other major country, 85 million Americans are uninsured or under-insured, over 500,000 of our people go bankrupt because of medically-related debt, over 60,000 people die each year because they can’t afford to get to a doctor on time and our life expectancy is not only lower than almost any other major country, it is a system in which working-class and low-income Americans die 7 years younger than wealthier Americans.
So you’ve got a crisis: People can’t find a doctor. People are going bankrupt because of health care bills. And what does this CR do?
Well, at a time when our primary health care system is completely broken, when we don’t have enough doctors or nurses or mental health counselors, this proposal cuts community health center funding by 3.2%, cuts the National Health Service Corps by over 5% and cuts funding for Teaching Health Centers — a program which helps train doctors in rural and underserved areas — by almost 13%.
In the midst of a horrific primary health care crisis in Vermont and all over rural America, this proposal will make it that much harder for people to get the health care they desperately need.
But it’s not just health care. Everyone in this country from Vermont to Los Angeles understands we have a major housing crisis. And it’s not just all the homelessness we are seeing. Over 20 million of our people spend more than 50% of their limited income on housing.
How in God’s name do you pay for anything else? How do you buy food? How do you take care of health care if you’re spending 50% or more for your housing.
So how does this CR address the housing crisis? It cuts rental assistance for low-income families in America by $700 million, which could lead to more than 32,000 families in our country being evicted from their homes. Well, that is a heck of a solution to the housing crisis.
But it’s not just housing.
I know that the president might disagree – he thinks that climate change is a hoax. But the whole scientific community understands that it is an existential threat. They understand that the last 10 years have been the warmest ever recorded, and extreme weather disturbances and natural disasters have been taking place all over the world – from California to India, across Europe, to North Carolina.
So what does the CR do about the existential threat of climate change?
It does not even specify funding levels within the Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, the administration could simply eliminate funding for climate change and environmental justice and that would be consistent with this CR.
And on top of all this, the administration is already indicating that they will simply ignore the provisions of the spending bill they don’t like.
This week, it was reported that Vice President JD Vance said to the Senate Republican caucus: “I want everyone to vote Yes. The President, under Section II, will ensure allocations from Congress are not spent on things that harm the taxpayer. There’s so much grift in Washington — let’s move this CR, get to reconciliation and for Congress to pass appropriations.”
In other words, what Vance is saying is don’t worry about what’s actually in the bill. If the Trump administration doesn’t like it, they won’t do it.
And let’s be clear: the House CR and the Trump administration are doing everything they can to lay the groundwork for more tax breaks for billionaires paid for by massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance, housing and education.
So you’re looking at a 1-2 punch: a very bad CR and then a reconciliation bill coming down which will be the final kick in the teeth for the American people.
This legislation that the Republicans are working on, the reconciliation bill, will cut taxes for billionaires and the top 1% by $1.1 trillion over the next decade.
According to a recent study, if all of Trump’s so-called “America First” policies are enacted, the bottom 95% of Americans will see their taxes go up, while the richest 5% in our country will see their taxes go down. Way down.
I should also mention that the reconciliation bill which Republicans are working on right now would also cut Medicaid by $880 billion.
Tax breaks for billionaires. Throwing low-income kids off health care. Decimating nursing homes all over America, because nursing homes receive two-thirds of their funding from Medicaid. Making it harder for community health centers to survive, who provide health care to 32 million Americans because 43% of their revenue comes from Medicaid.
Further, the reconciliation bill proposes to cut $230 billion from nutrition. Today, nearly one out of five children in America rely on federal nutrition programs to keep them from going hungry.
And I find it rather remarkable that the richest person on Earth and his oligarch friends are working night and day to cut programs for the working people of this country and to actually deny food to hungry kids in America.
There is no world, no universe, no religion that would not believe that that is grossly immoral and unacceptable. You don’t give tax breaks to the rich and take food away from hungry children.
The House CR bill that we will be soon voting on here is a piece of legislation I cannot support. Instead, what the Senate must do is pass a 30-day CR so that all members of Congress, not just the House Republican leadership, can come together and produce a good piece of legislation that works for all Americans and not just the few.
We have an opportunity now to serve the American people. We have an opportunity now to write something that reflects what people in the Congress feel, what people in America feel.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I held a telephone town hall in Vermont. We are a small state. We only have about 650,000 people. And yet on that telephone town hall there was some 34,000 people listening in. That is a significant percentage of a small state.
I have been in many parts of the country recently. I have been in Iowa, I’ve been in Wisconsin, I have been in Nebraska, I’ve been in Michigan. And what I can tell you with absolute certainty is, whether people are conservative, whether they’re Republican, whether they’re progressive, whether they’re moderate, Independent, whatever they may be. There are very few people in this country that think we should give tax breaks to the rich and cut back on Medicaid, education and nutritional programs for hungry children.
From Sanders’ prepared remarks for his senate floor speech on March 13, 2025.
Bernie Sanders is a US Senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress.
Senate Democrats Must Vote Against The Republican’s Continuing Budget Resolution
It's the only way to hold the Trump regime accountable. Call your senators now.
It's the only way to hold the Trump regime accountable. Call your senators now.
By Robert Reich
March 13, 2025
Source: Robert Reich Substack
Yesterday, the House passed legislation to fund the government through Sept. 30 and thereby avert a shutdown at the end of this week.
The measure now goes to the Senate, where Democrats must decide whether to support it and thereby hand Trump and Musk a blank check to continue their assault on the federal government.
The House bill would keep last year’s spending levels largely flat but would increase spending for the military by $6 billion and cut more than $1 billion from the District of Columbia’s budget.
In normal times, I recommend that Democrats vote for continuing budget resolutions because Democrats support the vital services that the government provides to the American people — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans services, education, the Food and Drug Administration, environmental protection, and much else.
In normal times, Democrats want to keep the government open.
In normal times, Democrats would be wrong to vote against a continuing resolution that caused the government to shut down.
But these are not normal times.
The president of the United States and the richest person in the world are already shutting the government down. They have effectively closed USAID and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. They have sent half the personnel of the Department of Education packing. They are eliminating Environmental Protection Agency offices responsible for addressing high levels of pollution facing poor communities.
They are usurping from Congress the power of the purse — the power to decide what services are to be funded and received by the American people — and are arrogating that power to themselves.
In 1996, when I was in Bill Clinton’s cabinet, we opposed Newt Gingrich’s budget bullying. We also understood that Gingrich’s demands would seriously cripple the federal government. So Bill Clinton refused to go along with Gingrich’s budget resolution, and the government was shuttered for four long painful weeks..
Today’s situation is far worse. Trump and Musk aren’t just making demands that would cripple the federal government. They are directly crippling the federal government.
Why should any member of Congress vote in favor of a continuing resolution to fund government services that are no longer continuing?
Why should any member of Congress vote to give Trump and Musk a trillion dollars and then let them decide how to spend it — or not spend it?
Why should Congress give Trump and Musk a blank check to continue their pillage?
The real choice congressional Democrats face today is not between a continuing resolution that allows the government to function normally or a government shutdown. Under Trump and Musk, the government is not functioning normally. It is not continuing. It is already shutting down.
Today’s real choice is between a continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to decide what government services they want to continue and what services they want to shut down — or demanding that Trump and Musk stop usurping the power of Congress, as a condition for keeping the government funded.
Trump, Musk, and the rest of their regime have made it clear that they don’t care what Congress or the courts say. They are acting unconstitutionally. They are actively destroying our system of government.
The spineless Republicans will not say this publicly. So Democrats must — and Democrats must insist on budget language that holds Trump and Musk accountable.
The House’s Republican-drafted budget resolution isn’t contingent on Trump observing existing laws. It does not instruct the president to stop Musk from riding roughshod over the federal government. It doesn’t tell the president and his cabinet to spend the money Congress intended to be spent.
Members of Trump’s team are already saying that if a continuing resolution is passed they will not observe laws that Congress has enacted and will not spend funds that Congress has authorized and appropriated. Marco Rubio, for example, says that even if the State Department is fully funded, he will void 83 percent of the contracts authorized for USAID.
Senate Democrats are needed to obtain 60 votes needed to pass the House’s continuing budget resolution through the Senate. But there is no point in Democrats voting to fund the government only to let Trump and Musk do whatever they see fit with those funds.
Senate Democrats have an opportunity to stop Trump and Musk from their illegal and unconstitutional shutting of the government. Democrats should say they’ll vote for the continuing budget resolution to keep the government going only if Trump agrees to abide by the law and keep the government going — fully funding the services that Congress intends to be fully funded and stop the pillaging.
If Democrats set out this condition clearly but Trump won’t agree, the consequences will be on Trump and the Republicans. They run the government now. They are the ones who are engaging in, or are complicit in, the wanton destruction now taking place.
This is an opportunity for the public to learn what Trump and Musk are doing, and why it’s illegal and unconstitutional.
In 1996, when Bill Clinton refused to go along with Newt Gingrich’s plan to cripple the federal government, causing the government to shut down for a month, Clinton wasn’t blamed. Gingrich was blamed.
If you live in a state with a Democratic senator, please phone them right now and tell them not to vote for the continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to continue shutting the government. The Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.
Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reich is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton. He was also a member of President Barack Obama's economic transition advisory board. Reich has been the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley since January 2006. He was formerly a lecturer at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a professor of social and economic policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management of Brandeis University.
Yesterday, the House passed legislation to fund the government through Sept. 30 and thereby avert a shutdown at the end of this week.
The measure now goes to the Senate, where Democrats must decide whether to support it and thereby hand Trump and Musk a blank check to continue their assault on the federal government.
The House bill would keep last year’s spending levels largely flat but would increase spending for the military by $6 billion and cut more than $1 billion from the District of Columbia’s budget.
In normal times, I recommend that Democrats vote for continuing budget resolutions because Democrats support the vital services that the government provides to the American people — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans services, education, the Food and Drug Administration, environmental protection, and much else.
In normal times, Democrats want to keep the government open.
In normal times, Democrats would be wrong to vote against a continuing resolution that caused the government to shut down.
But these are not normal times.
The president of the United States and the richest person in the world are already shutting the government down. They have effectively closed USAID and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. They have sent half the personnel of the Department of Education packing. They are eliminating Environmental Protection Agency offices responsible for addressing high levels of pollution facing poor communities.
They are usurping from Congress the power of the purse — the power to decide what services are to be funded and received by the American people — and are arrogating that power to themselves.
In 1996, when I was in Bill Clinton’s cabinet, we opposed Newt Gingrich’s budget bullying. We also understood that Gingrich’s demands would seriously cripple the federal government. So Bill Clinton refused to go along with Gingrich’s budget resolution, and the government was shuttered for four long painful weeks..
Today’s situation is far worse. Trump and Musk aren’t just making demands that would cripple the federal government. They are directly crippling the federal government.
Why should any member of Congress vote in favor of a continuing resolution to fund government services that are no longer continuing?
Why should any member of Congress vote to give Trump and Musk a trillion dollars and then let them decide how to spend it — or not spend it?
Why should Congress give Trump and Musk a blank check to continue their pillage?
The real choice congressional Democrats face today is not between a continuing resolution that allows the government to function normally or a government shutdown. Under Trump and Musk, the government is not functioning normally. It is not continuing. It is already shutting down.
Today’s real choice is between a continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to decide what government services they want to continue and what services they want to shut down — or demanding that Trump and Musk stop usurping the power of Congress, as a condition for keeping the government funded.
Trump, Musk, and the rest of their regime have made it clear that they don’t care what Congress or the courts say. They are acting unconstitutionally. They are actively destroying our system of government.
The spineless Republicans will not say this publicly. So Democrats must — and Democrats must insist on budget language that holds Trump and Musk accountable.
The House’s Republican-drafted budget resolution isn’t contingent on Trump observing existing laws. It does not instruct the president to stop Musk from riding roughshod over the federal government. It doesn’t tell the president and his cabinet to spend the money Congress intended to be spent.
Members of Trump’s team are already saying that if a continuing resolution is passed they will not observe laws that Congress has enacted and will not spend funds that Congress has authorized and appropriated. Marco Rubio, for example, says that even if the State Department is fully funded, he will void 83 percent of the contracts authorized for USAID.
Senate Democrats are needed to obtain 60 votes needed to pass the House’s continuing budget resolution through the Senate. But there is no point in Democrats voting to fund the government only to let Trump and Musk do whatever they see fit with those funds.
Senate Democrats have an opportunity to stop Trump and Musk from their illegal and unconstitutional shutting of the government. Democrats should say they’ll vote for the continuing budget resolution to keep the government going only if Trump agrees to abide by the law and keep the government going — fully funding the services that Congress intends to be fully funded and stop the pillaging.
If Democrats set out this condition clearly but Trump won’t agree, the consequences will be on Trump and the Republicans. They run the government now. They are the ones who are engaging in, or are complicit in, the wanton destruction now taking place.
This is an opportunity for the public to learn what Trump and Musk are doing, and why it’s illegal and unconstitutional.
In 1996, when Bill Clinton refused to go along with Newt Gingrich’s plan to cripple the federal government, causing the government to shut down for a month, Clinton wasn’t blamed. Gingrich was blamed.
If you live in a state with a Democratic senator, please phone them right now and tell them not to vote for the continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to continue shutting the government. The Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.
Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reich is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton. He was also a member of President Barack Obama's economic transition advisory board. Reich has been the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley since January 2006. He was formerly a lecturer at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a professor of social and economic policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management of Brandeis University.
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