Yea, I think the GOP leader has to agree which bills come up for a vote. There are 12 separate bills that make up the budget, and DHS is it’s own bill. The reason R’s wouldn’t want to pass 11 out of 12 is that they can no longer frame it as vote to keep the Gov’t open when it’s just about merely funding DHS. That’s a losing (clean) argument for them.
From your article:
The Senate will vote Thursday on a six-bill package that would fund several departments, including DHS. But Democrats have demanded that Senate Majority Leader John Thune strip out the DHS bill and negotiate new policy changes for immigration agencies. Senators are widely expecting the bill to fail to advance Thursday, which would force them to pivot to a Plan B.
…
Republicans are loath to strip out the Department of Homeland Security billbecause any changes to the funding package would require it to go back to the House, where GOP hardliners are already vowing to throw up roadblocks.
“Strip out” is not good language nor accurate. The “package” is 12 standalone bills (looks like they are doing six tomorrow). They all get introduced and passed separately just like any other law would. They would only need to go back to the House is if they are put up for a vote and voted down. Ds only want to vote down one bill - the DHS one. We’ll see if they put any of those six (out of twelve) up for a vote; or if they just put up the DHS bill and it gets voted down.
I’m pretty sure this is accurate. With that said, it’s the US budget and I’d be open to correction if there was potentially language in one bill that affect another so much that all 12 had to be sent back to the House. I don’t think so, though.
Late: Unless that last “strip out” sentence is just saying that changes to the DHS bill would have to go back to the House. That’s completely accurate. The language in the bill that passes both chambers has to be exactly the same. But I’m reading it as saying changes to 1 bill out of the 12 would cause all 12 to go back to the house = inaccurate.
Double Late: To address what would shut down/create pain, etc., w/o DHS funding TSA likely would at some point and that’s going to get lots of people mad. This can all be done in a week, though before that would be a problem. I also just wouldn’t say the “gov’t” is shut down when it’s select few depts.
You are hypothesizing that Republicans wouldn’t give in. That’s just a hypothesis. Maybe they would. Maybe they’d eliminate the filibuster - that would be great, long term, for the Democrats. I disagree with your hypothesis.
With the senate having a built-in Republican advantage (because sparsely populated rural red states elect as many senators as populous blue states) why would eliminating the ability of a minority of senators to stop legislation help the Democrats? wouldn’t it be the other way around?
Because Republicans, in general, don’t want to pass big legislation. Pretty much just tax cuts, which they can already do. Democrats, on the other hand, could do universal health care. They could bring in new states. They could completely refashion the Supreme Court. They could raise the minimum wage. They could do major climate legislation. They could expand the size of the House of Representatives. They could outlaw gerrymandering. And a million other things, without the filibuster.
Discussion regarding Democrats forcing a shutdown over ICE overreach
I feel this this framing is biased because it ignores the agency of the Republican majorities in Congress. Anything that Congress does or doesn’t do is directly caused by the Republican majorities.
I spent time looking at congress.gov and I should clarify my earlier remarks about what is being voted on. It’s actually even easier for Democrats. Half the budget 6/12 Depts have already been funded weeks ago.
Half to go. The are two things to vote on in the Senate: A “package” of 5 bills (Defense, HUD, etc.). There is 1 standalone bill - DHS. It’s already carved out because it got carved out in the House.
Anyways, I’ll never know if I’m actually sure of this stuff since the procedures are complex, I jumped into looking at this in the middle of it, I only know this at a civics 101 level, and the procedures can be used politically in ways I don’t understand.
Not at all. In fact in this case, with the reasonable compromises asked from by Dem leadership, I think they will- maybe after a week or so of shut down.
What i am talking about is the posters here who think the dems should have let the last shut down go on and on indefinitely , even when if meant people getting no food aid.
That is simply not true. For example- the Democrats have tried several times to raise the minimum wage, even recently with the Raise the Wage Act of 2025 aiming to increase it to $17 per hour by 2030. Climate legislation- just recently the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, signed by President Biden, is the most significant Democratic-led climate legislation, investing over $300 billion in clean energy, electric vehicle tax credits, and emission reduction initiatives. It aims to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 40% by 2030. per AI. There was also the Redistricting Reform Act of 2025 (H.R. 158/S. 2577):** Introduced by Democrats like Rep. John Larson (CT) and Senator Raphael Warnock (GA) to enact federal standards for nonpartisan redistricting.. So, wrong again.
Indeed, this upcoming 2026 election has a very good chance of the Dems taking the House, and even maybe the Senate.
They passed it but the GOP blocked it by a filibuster. Please, why not check on things before you make such claims?
No, they put out a bill that the GOP will nix, so the Dems can tell the voters who got rid of it. The GOP has a choice in such popular bills- let them pass or fail them, and let the Dems gain in popularity with the voters. Please learn something about basic political strategy.
So they engaged in political theater, in other words.
I understand the strategy. The strategy is to promise things you have no intention to deliver in exchange for votes, then engage in deliberately half-assed attempts at legislation designed to fail, thereby pleasing the billionaires and corporate lobbyists that you consider to be your actual consistency, while telling voters that if only they voted for you even harder you might actually be able to do something, gosh darn it.
Of course, occasionally it backfires and you wind up with TOO large of a majority, like in 2009, so that’s when you deliver the most watered-down corporate-friendly “reform” you can possibly come up with that doesn’t really address the root of the problem.
There’s an anonymous, paramilitary force operating inside the country without oversight, proper procedures, or sufficient training executing violence against US citizens.
Where do you think this leads? How do you think this ends without harming “millions of Americans”? A shutdown isn’t the worse of the two outcomes.
Like very many, I have been to protests. Next time I will hesitate because it could be fatal. That’s the definition of a chilling effect.
If you had a piece of industrial machinery that was killing people, would it make sense to object to shutting it down long enough to prevent more deaths before turning it back on? Who would object to that? How can a person justify the loss of life to prevent a temporary inconvenience?
So you are in favor of choosing the option worse than a shutdown – the status quo? Or do you think that option is not as bad as a shutdown?
I mean this is a complex and subjective policy decision and there’s no possible way to know what will work better. So it’s reasonable that different people might come to different conclusions.
However, you have not articulated a position other than disagreeing with even threatening a shutdown. Would you agree if it was 10 citizens that died? A 1000? Some other idea to address this problem? Or it isn’t a problem?
These are the departments that still need their annual funding (salary):
. Financial Services and General Government - funds the Department of the Treasury, judicial branch, Executive Office of the President, DC government, independent agencies, and similar functions.
• Homeland Security — funds the Department of Homeland Security and agencies like FEMA, TSA, CBP/ICE, Coast Guard, Secret Service, etc.
• Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education — funds the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (NIH, CDC, etc.), and Education.
• Transportation, Housing and Urban Development — funds the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
• State, Foreign Operations — funds the Department of State, foreign aid, USAID, etc
So about the other half of Govt. However. they are packaged together except DHS (homeland security) which can be voted as a standalone bill.
What part of government that is killing people will a stutdown shut down?
I’m thinking that every function which kills people will be deemed essential and continue. And functions that save lives, such as enrolling people in medical studies, will pause. Are there counterexamples?
ICE is asking for additional funding, and denying them that funding should hinder their efforts to take over another city. Not to mention that if you make budget cooperation dependent on changing how ICE operates, and you have wide support from the voters, that could significantly reduce the aggression of ICE.