EDITORIAL: ‘These are not people who want to get things done’

Senate Democrats have blocked 10 bills to fund the government in the past few weeks. On Thursday, they voted to stop stand-alone legislation to fund the Defense Department.

“Filibustering the defense appropriations bill, which is a bill which, like I said, should get 80-plus votes on the floor, suggests a level of dysfunction that, on their side, right now, that I can’t explain,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said after the latest vote. “These are not people who want to get things done.”

Most of them, at least. Three Democrats — including, to her credit, Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto — have consistently voted with the GOP to keep the government open, believing that the disruption isn’t worth the cost. Good for them.

Indeed, the American public should have no doubt about who is behind the current government shutdown, which will soon enter its fourth week. And to what end? As the national debt rushes toward $37 trillion, Democrats want to spend $1.5 trillion to make permanent pandemic-era health care subsidies for middle-class taxpayers that were intended to minimize disruptions during a COVID crisis that has long since passed.

We’ll find out next week how far up the hill Democrats are willing to run. Politico reports that Sen. Thune plans to put them on the spot by bringing legislation to the floor next week that would pay “excepted” federal employees, defined as those who must work through the stoppage, including military members.

Sen. Thune noted that this will give Democrats a “chance to vote to pay the military next week.” Or not. This is a clear effort to put pressure on Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his caucus to relent. Republicans will use the vote to go on record in support of paying American troops during the government shutdown. Are Democrats willing to take the risk of doing the opposite?

As the party of government, Democrats may also want to consider the fact that shutdowns expose public-sector inefficiencies, making cuts more palatable. The longer they last, the more many voters may conclude that they can comfortably survive in a world with less government.

“Each funding impasse (over the years) has collectively produced the world’s largest organized efficiency study,” former White House attorney Daniel Huff noted this week in a Wall Street Journal commentary. “Not a simulation or theoretical analysis, but a real-world test of which positions the government can function without.” That information is a “tested blueprint for smaller government.”

It’s a blueprint the Trump administration and the GOP shouldn’t hesitate to follow.