Please help the confused Canadian.
The US government is shutting down because appropriations haven’t been passed.
The Republicans hold a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
So why is there a theme that it’s the Democrats’ fault?
Why is the minority party being blamed for the inaction by the majority party?
There are a lot of moving parts, but in short, it’s because it’s the Republican standard operating procedure. In their Operations Manual, I’m pretty sure the first chapter says, “if any thing good happens, take credit. If anything bad happens, blame the Democrat [sic] Party.”
I’m not sure that the Democrats are being blamed. There’s a lot of polling, with slightly more respondents blaming Republicans than Democrats.
But I don’t think the polls are actually useful on this question, because the question has been politicized. Which means what people are actually saying is “I support Trump” or “I don’t support Trump”, without regard to any actual questions.
The technical answer is that the Democrats in the Senate hold enough seats to prevent the 60 votes (out of 100) needed for approval of the budget. It has already passed the House (straight majority required). The Democrats are holding out for continued medical insurance subsidies for 24 million Americans, which otherwise would expire soon. Meanwhile, the Republicans say that there is nothing to negotiate, the budget bill is perfect as is.
You need 60/100 votes to pass the budget in the Senate. So even though the Senate has 53 Republicans and hold the majority, they cannot convince enough Democratic & Independent senators to vote yes on the budget bill.
Actually they did convince 2 Democratic senators - John Fetterman from Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada - to vote yes on the budget. And one Independent, Angus King of Maine. But also 1 Republican Senator, Rand Paul, voted no.
That is the factual data answer.
The nonsense reason answer that the Republican party came up with for why they can’t get enough Democrats to pass the bill is “Democrats want free health care for illegal aliens.”
The budget bill removes funding for hospitals that have to treat anyone that comes through their doors due to the 1986 (Regan) Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA). The law is still in effect, the hospitals still have to treat (or at least stabilize) these patients - who include not just undocumented people but also indigent Americans and people with valid visas. But it is my understanding that funding in relation to this treatment is removed in this budget.
Republicans seem to have spun this in a way that makes people think that 1) Undocumented people in the US receive free health care and benefits via Medicaid (they do not) and 2) Democrats are holding up the whole budget because of this.
The reality is that Democrats will not vote yes on the budget bill because the budget will cause a lot of people to lose government assistance for health care costs:
President Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025 a budget reconciliation package (formerly called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”) that will make significant changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that, relative to its estimates of insurance coverage prior to the law being enacted, the law will increase the number of people without health insurance in 2034 by 10 million, because of changes to Medicaid (7.5 million), the ACA Marketplaces (2.1 million), and other policies and interactions among different provisions (0.4 million). These legislative changes come at a time when enhanced premium tax credits for ACA Marketplace enrollees are set to expire later this year. When combining the impact of the reconciliation law with that of the expected expiration of the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits, CBO estimates show that the number of uninsured people will increase by more than 14 million in 2034. That estimate does not account for the effects of the Trump administration’s ACA Marketplace Integrity and Affordability rule finalized earlier this year, so the overall change in the number of uninsured people could be even larger.
The technical answer is that it takes a 3/5 majority in the Senate to pass any controversial measure, and the Republicans don’t have that many votes. They need a handful of Democratic votes and so far the Democratic minority has stood firm. Since neither side will budge, it’s all the Democrats’ fault. Simple.
It’s not “controversy” that determines how many votes is needed, but the arcane Senate rules. For example, the Big Beautiful Bill, which was extremely controversial, passed with a simple majority.
There is also a history when the Democrats held the majority and the Republicans were able to prevent the passage of a bill to prevent a government shutdown, the Democrats blamed them as obstructionist. So business as usual in US politics to blame the minority party for the shutdown.
But honestly, both sides share the blame by keeping the stupid spending cap in place.
Current polling is relatively squishy but leans towards blaming Trump more than Democrats.
That said, probably the stronger interpretation would be that no one thinks that there’s a good person involved in the matter and the hell with the lot. From the vantage of the Democrats, I don’t think they really need to be concerned about their visuals since, really, who cares at this point?
But I certainly would note that they’re shutting down because a Covid-era, temporary health fund is going to be cancelled, and not because the President has broken laws or violated the Constitution, or anything that’s more important to the basic structure of the land, so I’d probably agree with a “the hell with the lot” sentiment.
What history are you referring to? When has the government shut down while Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency?
Yep, more or less. The GOP controls both houses, they could pass the bill if they really wanted to.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/30/nx-s1-5558393/government-shutdown-trump-ethics-hatch-act
Yep. And sex operations for children.
But!
WASHINGTON - A new poll found that more Americans blame President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans for the federal government shutdown than congressional Democrats.
The CBS News/YouGov poll, conducted between Oct. 1 and Oct. 3 among 2,441 adults, found that 39% of respondents believe Trump and congressional Republicans deserve the most blame for the shutdown. Thirty percent of respondents blame Democrats more, and 31% blame both equally.
The poll also found that 52% of respondents disapprove of the way Trump is handling the shutdown. Fifty-two percent also disapprove of the way congressional Republicans are handling it.
1990 and I did not refer to the Presidency as having a role because they can’t do anything if Congress does not have a bill. 2013 was due to both sides and the Republicans did control the House but IIRC the Democratic-controlled Senate was stymied by a couple of Republicans threatening a filibuster against raising the debt-ceiling. And again in 2023 with a Republican House accusing the Democratic Senate of possibly causing a shutdown (that never happened) because of the spending vs debt ceiling.
But my point is it is always the other party’s fault
Because the Right controls the media, and therefore the media is going to blame the Democrats. And as a Canadian, that’s what you are mostly going to see from the US; the media’s position, not the position of the average American.
The Democrats are being blamed because, objectively, they are the ones who are preventing the budget from passing. If they were to vote yes, the shutdown would be over. That’s the simple view as to why they are getting blamed. People with simple minds accept that answer. But the rules of the Senate are to come with a budget that get 60 votes. The parties should compromise to reach that goal. As it is, the Republicans crafted the budget they wanted and they don’t care if the Democrats like it or not. In that sense, it’s the Republicans who are causing the shutdown by not creating a budget that at least some of the Democrats will go along with. But that’s a more complicated explanation than most people want to deal with, so they just accept that the Democrats are causing the shutdown.
Thanks, Obama!
I don’t know that the Democrats are necessarily catching all the heat; what I’m more or less hearing is people grumbling that the Republicans are just pointing fingers instead of actually coming to the table and negotiating out a solution.
I mean, anyone with half a brain and middle school level knowledge of how the government operates understands that stuff like this is about compromise, and that it’s just flat-out stupid for the Republicans to just expect the Democrats to knuckle under and let it pass.
Which also makes me wonder what their game is; they have to have known there was a high chance we’d end up right where we are.
Most likely, they do expect the Democrats to just completely submit and give up everything in return for nothing. Both for historical reasons (the Democrats has constantly rolled over for the Republicans for decades) and because both the base and top leadership of the Republicans consider compromise anathema.
Trump thinks any deal where the other side gets anything makes you a “loser”, and we all know what MAGA is like.
Only because the majority (i.e., the Republicans) want that to be the rule. If they wanted to pass a budget and keep the government running, they’d change the rule. Or they’d use the already-existing reconciliation rule that allows them to pass bills with a simple majority, if the bill will decrease the deficit, and pass a budget that will decrease the deficit. Or they’d use that rule with a budget that’ll increase the deficit, but lie and say that it’ll decrease it. They’ve used all of those techniques before. The reason they’re not using any of those techniques now is because they want the government to be shut down.
Cite? I mean there’s Fox… But in general if you Google “who is responsible for the shutdown?- out of the dozen cites, 7 blame the repubs, and none blame the dems- some blame both.
Nope. The GOP could vote and end this tomorrow. It only takes a majority to end the filibuster. And all the Dems want is for the GOP to sit down and negotiate, which they refuse to.
Exactly, in fact they did that for SCOTUS votes some years past.
Yes, I thought there was a way to get a money bill passed without needing 60 in the Senate. But again, if the Republicans control that process as well, why should Democrats get blamed?