By: Kimberley A. Strassel – wsj.com – September 25, 2025

Democrats will suffer lasting effects if they go through with their threats.

Washington is barreling toward a shutdown. The Senate returns from a break on Monday with two days to provide stopgap funding to keep the government humming. Messrs. Schumer and Jeffries are having none of it. They insist government won’t run unless Democrats are given $450 billion in additional ObamaCare money, an end to President Trump’s hold on spending, and a reversal of the central Medicaid reform in the GOP’s reconciliation bill.

Put another way: Democrats will give the Trump team exactly what it’s been wanting—a shutdown—in return for Democrats’ continuing to demand something they will never get. What a deal. Even Faust got some worldly pleasure in exchange for a soul. This is trading hellfire for brimstone.

Mr. Trump’s biggest second-term transgression, according to opponents, has been his dismantling of the federal apparatus. The Department of Government Efficiency enacted firings or resignation incentives expected to result in 300,000 fewer federal employees by year’s end. The president has clawed back grant money and frozen funds. What’s an incandescent Democrat to do? Hand him a gift-wrapped opportunity to do more of the same. Obviously.

The true scope of this losing proposition came clear with a memo Mr. Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, issued Wednesday night, explaining how a shutdown will roll. Shutdowns usually mean furloughed federal employees, who suffer temporary inconvenience before resuming their jobs. Not this time.

The Vought memo orders agencies to identify all programs that depend on discretionary funding (which lapses next week) and don’t align with the president’s priorities. Employees who administer those disfavored programs or projects won’t be furloughed. They will be fired.

For small-government advocates, the beauty of this is its reset potential. When government reopens, the Trump team will hire back the fewest possible statutorily required employees at programs it already wanted to cut. For a starter list, see the more than 45 Mr. Trump’s recent budget asked Congress to eliminate—among them the Economic Development Administration, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Legal Services Corp. And then there’s the Education Department.

No need to ask Congress now! “He’s not the king. He can’t just dictate,” Mr. Schumer groused on Wednesday. Except when Democrats let him, with a shutdown.

This administration also has every incentive—and decent means—to lessen shutdown pain for average Americans while maximizing it for Democrats. The Trump team has already listed the programs that will continue regardless of shutdown: Social Security, Medicare, military operations, veteran benefits, border security, air-traffic control. The recent reconciliation bill helps ensure they function.

They additionally have the experience of 2018, when they weathered the longest shutdown in modern times—35 days—thanks to creative use of doctrines that allowed them to keep some discretionary programs ticking. The architect of much of that nimble maneuvering was Mark Paoletta, who in 2018 was OMB’s general counsel. He is back in that role.

The Democrats’ intellectual confusion over the shutdown continued with their reaction to the Vought memo. Mr. Schumer brushed aside the layoff threat, claiming any firings would be “overturned in court,” while Mr. Jeffries warned federal employees in Virginia that “mass firings” were coming to “ruin your life.”

Give them credit for being united in the worst political idea since Biden 2024. Democrats are digging in, with Mr. Jeffries even getting a little spicy, telling the “malignant political hack” Mr. Vought that “we will not be intimidated by your threat.” He can say that because House Republicans have already passed a continuing resolution over Democratic opposition, and Speaker Mike Johnsonsaid he isn’t bringing members back to Washington until at least Wednesday—after the shutdown deadline.

All the onus rests on Mr. Schumer, since it will take Senate Democratic votes to keep government running. Don’t be fooled: He knows well what a horrible idea this shutdown is. In March, he argued that to close the government would be a “gift” to the White House, since it would give Mr. Trump “carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate,” and Mr. Vought the “keys to the city, state and country.”

The only thing that’s changed is Mr. Schumer’s personal political situation. His smart decision in March to provide funding votes was met with howls from the left, complete with demands he step down as leader and threats of a primary. His defiance this time raises the expectations of Democratic voters to a level that all but locks the party into a shutdown that can’t end well.

All of this would be amusing were it not for—scratch that, this is amusing. The reason Democrats don’t usually do shutdowns is because Democrats do government. It’s that simple. Yet here we go.

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Source: Russ Vought’s Secret Shutdown Weapon – WSJ