The Daily Reid: The government is already shut down

How do you shut down a government that's already being dismantled? Call your Senator and tell them to stop playing and put an end to the Trump, Elon, doge madness.

The question is not “will the government shut down on Saturday…” the question is, how can you shut down a government that’s already been dismantled? The truth of the matter is, the federal government is already shut down. Trump, Elon Musk and the doge gang began shutting it down on January 20th, and they’ve manage to largely accomplish that goal, while pushing us to a near recession, in just two months. A few items:

The Department of Education yesterday cut half its staff, as his first step toward dismantling the department under the “leadership” of that woman from World Wrestling. Surprise, surprise: the National Education Association says the consequences of Republicans achieving their decades-long dream of deleting the Education Department would be borne largely by disabled students:

Ninety percent of U.S. students and 95% of students with disabilities learn in our public schools. Students across the country benefit from programs run by the Department of Education. Eliminating the department, National Education Association President Becky Pringle said this week, was equivalent to “giving up on our future.”

“If it became a reality,” Pringle said, “Trump’s power grab would steal resources for our most vulnerable students, explode class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections.”

Ending the Department, which was created by congress under President Jimmy Carter over Republican objections (and which only congress could dissolve) would spell the end of federal protections for students against racial, gender and gender identity discrimination, and would cripple the administration of federal student loans. Those consequences are described and summarized here.

You know who would be thrilled with those outcomes? Right wing Christian nationalists who have long hated the idea of a federal education agency:

…shuttering the Department of Education would fulfill the dreams of a significant part of Trump's base: Christian conservatives. For roughly a century, conservative Christian groups have claimed that education should include Christian teachings and have increasingly concluded that American public schools are unsuited—and even antagonistic—to that task. And while Trump often takes unprecedented actions, this is not one of them. His latest actions are simply the latest move in an anti-Department of Education crusade a century in the making.

In 1926, J. Gresham Machen was the leading fundamentalist theologian in the U.S. His defense of biblical inerrancy against the modernism of mainstream Bible scholars had laid the intellectual foundation for the future of evangelical Protestantism. But on Feb. 25, 1926, Machen was not preaching to the choir. Instead, he was testifying before a joint session of the Senate and House Committees on Education against a bill to create a cabinet-level federal Department of Education.

A Department of Education, Machen insisted, would negate “the individual liberty of the states.” More importantly, he claimed, it was an ideological threat that would result in “the worst kind of slavery that could possibly be devised—slavery in the sphere of the mind.”

Machen wanted to limit public schooling altogether. He saw it as “inimical to parental authority.” To him, the responsibility for “the moral and religious training of children” properly belonged with “individual parents.” “If you give the bureaucrats the children, you might as well give them everything else as well,” Machen proclaimed to applause in the chamber.

The theologian and his allies succeeded in defeating the Department of Education in 1926.

… Just a year later, however, evangelicals changed their tune thanks to another Supreme Court decision. In McCollum v. Board of Education, the justices declared unconstitutional an Illinois program in which students received education in their various religious traditions on public school premises during the school day. The Supreme Court had destroyed “the Christian foundation of public education,” thundered Harold Ockenga, a mentee of Machen's and co-founder of the NAE to his congregation in Boston.

And now that far right ideology from the 1920s has returned in full force under Project 2025 and maga Trumpism. Are we great again, yet?

And it’s not just the Department of Education.

The doge gang have been dismantling federal agencies at a rapid clip since assuming power on January 20th. Here’s the damage as reported by ABC News on February 27 (meaning it’s gotten worse since then):

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency group has made swift work of the billionaire's goal to scale back or dismantle much of the federal government, end diversity policies and otherwise further President Donald Trump's agenda.

DOGE employees, many of whom have no government experience, have been going through data systems, shutting down DEI programs and, in some cases, whole agencies.

As of Feb. 10, ABC has tracked Musk and his DOGE team gaining access to at least 15 federal agencies.

The White House and Republicans have claimed, without citing details, that DOGE is accountable to the president and will be kept away from conflicts of interest. Musk, though, according to lawmakers and attorneys representing federal workers, has violated laws, union agreements and civil service protections.

On Jan. 8, the administration sent out buyout offers to over 2 million federal workers, including employees in the CIA.

On Feb. 5, U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. temporarily blocked the offer and extended the deadline to Feb. 10 following lawsuit filed by federal workers' unions.

On Feb. 10, O'Toole said his temporary restraining order remains in effect until he issues a ruling on a preliminary injunction, but did not offer any indication of when he might issue that ruling.

On Feb. 12, O'Toole Jr. denied a request to issue a preliminary injunction blocking plan to offer a buyout to federal employees. He ruled the federal unions who brought the case lacked standing to sue and because the district court lacks jurisdiction to review the case.

And that’s just the start. Read the whole thing here. And this more recent article from Business Insider unpacks the doge attacks on the Social Security Administration, the IRS, National Institutes of Health, and even the Department of Defense.

In other words, there’s very little of the federal government that’s been left untouched by Elon’s chain saw doge kids with the full knowledge and enthusiastic support of the man who would be king (who apparently is also doubling as an unwanted electric car salesman.)

And while the federal government apparently has plenty of cash on hand to tear up Black Lives Matter Plaza in the nation’s Virginia area colony capitol, the “continuing resolution” passed by House Republicans (and one Democrat) yesterday (read it here) would slash the DC budget by $1 billion, potentially wrecking everything from fire prevention to trash collection to the operation of DC schools.

The bill, which is headed to the Senate where nervous Democrats await, would have severe consequences beyond D.C. It would gut Medicaid nationwide by some $800 billion (here the Center for American Progress breaks down the cuts by congressional district); slash things like community health centers, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, low income housing assistance (putting potentially tens of thousands of people at risk of eviction, Head Start early educaton for kids, Meals on Wheels for seniors, and food stamps (AKA SNAP). The Medicaid cuts alone would devastate rural hospitals, and maternal healthcare for the millions of women being forced to give birth in abortion banning red states. And they’re doing it all to make permanent Trump’s obscene 2017 tax cut for multimillionaires, billionaires and big corporations.

In other words: maga Republicans are seeking to force the poor, who are already struggling under the price hikes under Trumpflation to dig in their pockets again to pay for Trump’s Gilded Age tariffs and tax cuts for the super rich, including his billionaire cabinet.

Why would any Democrat vote for that??? Why participate at all, when Republicans could use the reconciliation parliamentary procedure to pass their repulsive bill on a party line vote? They literally don’t need Democrats’ votes, and Democrats control literally NOTHING in Washington. So why would Democrats dip their hands in the filth of robbing the sick, the elderly and the poor and smear the grime on themselves? Make Republicans own what they are trying to do to the American people, and own it alone.

I realize this is a challenge for Democrats, who are always given to knee wobbling and aren’t exactly adept at messaging. And they clearly fear the Republican gambit of labeling any government interruption a “Schumer shutdown.” Well let’s start with the fact that most Americans likely have no idea who Chuck Schumer is. And secondly, it shouldn’t be that hard to counter a message that pretends Democrats wield any power in Washington, when magas have been crowing since last November that all of the power is in THEIR hands. If y’all are so powerful, and your mandate is so historic, then fund the government your damned selves. We’ll wait.

America awaits Republicans’ genius plan to slash and also fund the government. Photo: iStock Photos.

Besides, doge doesn’t seem to feel constrained to abide by congressional spending mandates away, and this bill essentially codifies that: writing the Trump-Elon administration a giant blank check to spend our tax money however they choose. Republicans are essentially voting away their own power in order to kneel to their two daddies.

Here’s the number to the Senate switchboard, should you care to share your thoughts with your United States Senator: (202) 224-3121.

The Democratic Senators reportedly still on the fence about voting NO on the CR as of the time of this post are:

Elissa Slotkin (MI)

Gary Peters (MI)

Jacky Rosen (NV)

Jeanne Shaheen (NH)

Maggie Hassan (NH)

Jon Ossoff (GA)

John Hickenlooper (CO)

Michael Bennett (CO)

Mark Kelly (AZ)

Peter Welch (VT)

Mark Warner (VA)

Time Kaine (VA)

Meanwhile Delaware Senator Chris Coons is clear:

As are House progressives:

AOC speaks for me. Democrats have an opportunity to hold the line.

#Reiders, share your thoughts! What should Senate Democrats do, and since they’re the ones calling the shots, shouldn’t it be called the #trumpelonshutdown??? I’d also take bids on #magashutdown.

Just a thought…