Continuing Resolution | Breaking Big Money's Grip on America

What Can We Do?

Last Friday, nine Democratic senators (plus one Independent) voted to avert a filibuster, allowing the passage of a Republican bill to fund the government for six months till the end of the fiscal year. By announcing he would vote to invoke cloture and end debate on the bill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gave the other eight Democratic senators cover to follow his lead, preventing a government shutdown.

Schumer claimed, “Under a shutdown, Trump and Elon Musk would have carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.”[1] Despite his assertion, the great majority of Democratic senators and all but one House Dem supported shutting down the government.

The Dems who opposed the bill and voted to shut down the government believed supporting the bill would give Trump and Musk greater power. “I cannot vote for the Republican plan to give unchecked power to Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said in a statement.[2]

One could argue that either way, the Republicans would be in a more powerful position, and the Democrats would have little or, more likely, no sway. Still, by providing support for the Republican bill, the Dems appear to be weak and unwilling to fight for the American people.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) noted, “If we pass this continuing resolution for the next half year, we will own what the president does.”[3] That would mean the Dems would have at least some responsibility for the huge funding cuts, the elimination of numerous services, and the firing of thousands of government employees that the Republican bill authorizes.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) slammed Schumer’s caving to the Republicans to avoid a shutdown, calling it a “tremendous mistake” and indicating “there is a wide sense of betrayal.”[4]

In addition, 91% of Indivisible leaders nationwide voted to call for Schumer to step aside as Senate Minority Leader.[5] And other grassroots activists concluded there is a “crisis of confidence in Chuck Schumer and Democratic leadership.” Another Democratic activist stated, “We need an opposition party, the Democrats are anything but!”[6]

The Democrats clearly don’t have their act together. Not only don’t they have a united strategy to oppose the Trump administration, but they also don’t agree on how forcefully to contest his policies. In addition, they have not offered the American people a positive alternative to Trump’s agenda that addresses the people’s everyday concerns. And, they lack strong leadership that can rally the troops and inspire the American people.

Time is running out before Trump becomes the autocrat he longs to be, and he can no longer be stopped. With the Democrats limping along, there’s only one thing that can still deter him. And that is us, the American people.

We can shut down the economy. We can boycott the giant corporations that support Trump. We can flood Congress with our messages and our bodies. We can elect strong representatives to overturn Trump’s agenda. We can expose Trump as the lying con artist he truly is. We can withdraw our money from the big banks that support Trump. And, much more.

Yes, we, the people, can take back our government from Trump and his billionaire lackeys. But it is going to take all of us. Here are just a few things you can do right now:

1. Join the boycotts and shutdowns and urge your friends and family to join as well.

2. Contact your Democratic senators and urge them to install more aggressive Senate leadership.

3. Contact your House representative and urge him/her to resist Trump’s policies.

4. Flood social media with how corrupt Trump is and how he is destroying our economy.

5. Organize town halls.

6. Write Letters to the Editor.

Join the resistance and help save our country from Trump and his self-serving Republican powermongers.

Bruce Berlin, J.D.

A retired, public sector ethics attorney, Berlin is a former U.S. Institute of Peace Fellow and the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He is also the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America. (See breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.). Contact him at breakingbigmoneysgrip@gmail.com. Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/shutdown-democrats-trump_n_67d33122e4b022e5d6b350f9?origin=related-recirc

[2] Ibid.

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/chuck-schumer-vote-advance-gop-funding-bill-democratic-divisions-rcna196306

[4] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/15/aoc-schumer-republican-government-funding-bill/82440167007/

[5] https://indivisible.org/statements/indivisible-calls-schumer-step-aside

[6] https://www.commondreams.org/news/schumer-our-revolution-survey

On Friday, Congress passed a last-minute Continuing Resolution to avert a partial government shutdown and keep the government running until December 16. That gives Congress 10 weeks of breathing room to forge together a budget for the new fiscal year, which just began on October 1.

While Democrats overwhelmingly supported the Resolution, 25 Republican senators and 201 Republican House members voted against it. In total, only 32 out of 261 Congressional Republicans decided it was more important to keep our government running than to shut it down because they objected to certain measures or omissions.[1] Without a budget resolution all non-essential discretionary functions would have stopped this past Friday at midnight.[2] Over 85% of Republicans responsible for enacting our laws were willing to throw thousands of federal employees out of work, halt many federal programs that millions of Americans depend on, and greatly disrupt our economy rather than give Congress just 10 more weeks to pass a budget for fiscal 2023.

The stopgap spending bill provides $18.8 billion for Hurricane Ian and other disaster relief,[3] including $2.5 billion for those adversely affected by the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fire in New Mexico.[4] Despite Hurricane Ian’s devastation of their state, all 16 Floridian GOP members of the House voted against the Resolution.[5] (Incredibly, Florida Sen. Rick Scott joined in the dissent while Sen. Rubio failed to cast a vote.[6]) Apparently party politics are more important to them than their own constituents’ extreme hardship and their state’s dire need for aid in the face of this major catastrophe.

With November election day fast approaching, what were they thinking? How will Florida’s voters respond to their Republican representatives turning their backs on them in their hour of need. It’s also very telling that Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis voted against relief for the Northeast in the wake of Hurricane Sandy a decade ago when he was in Congress.[7] Ironically, he is now welcoming federal disaster assistance for his home state.[8]

You have to wonder how Republicans sleep at night. Putting their party ahead of their constituents’ urgent needs. Welcoming federal aid only when they believe it will further their political ambitions. You’d hope that voters would see through Republican hypocrisy and lack of compassion and reject their candidates at the polls. We’ll know if that’s the case in just a few short weeks.

Bruce Berlin, J.D.

A retired, public sector ethics attorney, Berlin is the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America (See breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.), the founder of New Mexicans for Money Out of Politics, a former U.S. Institute of Peace fellow, and the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He can be reached at breakingbigmoneysgrip@gmail.com.

Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/. Join the movement to revive our democracy. Together we can save the soul of America.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/30/congress-continuing-resolution-jackson-investiture/

[2] https://www.crfb.org/papers/qa-everything-you-should-know-about-government-shutdowns#whatservicesaffected

[3] https://federalnewsnetwork.com/budget/2022/09/house-passes-continuing-resolution-averting-government-shutdown-fda-furloughs/; https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/leahy-statement-on-final-passage-of-the-continuing-resolution-

[4] https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-fires-new-mexico-business-congress-a1c482f16a2d306cb9edfd9612992273

[5] https://www.axios.com/2022/10/01/hurricane-ian-florida-gop-marco-rubio-funding

[6] https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00351.htm

[7] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/30/hurricane-relief-votes-hypocrisy/

[8] https://apnews.com/a09c2b89211fba1a55a9b26f05d26203; https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/desantis-dials-down-rhetoric-biden-210148402.html