'Have a backbone': Dems 'itching for a fight' as budget talks intensify

04 March

Among Democrats, a burning question is when, where and how they should attack President Donald Trump's policies. Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville is arguing that Trump's policies are so terrible that Democrats need to sit back and watch him self-destruct.

According to Politico's Rachel Bade, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) is gearing up to aggressively battle Republicans over a spending bill and the mass layoffs of federal workers being carried out by the Trump Administration with the help of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

"This time," Bade reports in an article published on March 4, "it's Democrats who are itching for a fight — over the Department of Government Efficiency cuts that Trump has blessed and deputized mogul Elon Musk has gleefully carried out. Senior House Democrats have spent recent days privately surveying their members about whether they'd be willing to shut the government down over DOGE cuts, according to multiple well-placed Democratic sources I spoke to over the weekend. So far, they're encountering little resistance."

Democratic lawmakers, according to Bade, "have been emboldened by recent polling showing that the public has started to shift against DOGE, as Americans hear more about potentially losing benefits and veterans getting kicked out of jobs."

"That's to say nothing of the recent town-hall protests, where Republican lawmakers took an earful from constituents raging against DOGE," Bade explains. "Perhaps most importantly, Democrats up and down the leadership chain are hearing not only from the liberal base, but people they consider more mainstream — donors, strategists and constituents who believe they need to show some fight, and fast."

Bade notes that "a Democrat-induced shutdown" of the United States' federal government could "backfire on their party politically and only empower Musk even more to slash and burn his way through federal agencies."

However, a senior Democratic House aide, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Politico, "Nobody wants a shutdown, but they don't feel like aiding and abetting what’s happening, with Musk and Trump taking a wrecking ball to health care in particular. Why would we be complicit in that?"

A senior Democratic lawmaker, also quoted anonymously, told Politico, "At some point you’ve got to have a goddamn backbone. I am not giving them a blank check until September."

Read Politico's full article at this link.

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