The virulently anti-Trump American Federal of Government Employees (AFGE) is now calling on Senate Democrats to end the government shutdown by voting to pass a continuing resolution that would temporarily extend funding at previously-approved levels.
“Both political parties have made their point,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in a statement Monday. “[I]t’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.”
The federal government has been shuttered since October 1 because Senate Democrats are filibustering a “clean” (unchanged) bill that would keep funding the same as the continuing resolution they voted for the last time funding was about to expire.
Instead, Senate Democrats are demanding an extra $1.5 trillion of taxpayer money for agenda items, such as providing free health care to illegal aliens and propping up the foundering Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
“Unfortunately, shutdowns have become a recurring tactic in Washington. But there is no ‘winning’ a government shutdown,” Kelley writes. “Reopen the government immediately under a clean continuing resolution that allows continued debate on larger issues.”
“None of these steps favor one political side over another. They favor the American people,” AFGE Pres. Kelley says.
AFGE’s rhetoric was not so nonpartisan when the prospect a government shutdown was looming last year, however.
On September 20, 2024, Pres. Kelley issued a statement laying blame directly on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, calling him a “reckless, desperate candidate bent on sowing chaos and confusion”:
“Once again, a group of lawmakers are taking orders from Donald Trump, pretending they’re on reality TV instead of running a government, and playing politics with the livelihoods of dedicated public servants who care for our veterans, protect our food supply, keep our communities safe, and so much more.”
….
“It’s time for lawmakers to stop catering to the whims of one reckless, desperate candidate bent on sowing chaos and confusion and listen to the seventy five percent of Americans who don’t want to see a government shut down.”
More recently, AFGE has:
- Sued the Trump Administration over shutdown-related layoffs and the end of taxpayer-funded propaganda promoting public media.
- Endorsed Jay Jones, a scandal-plagued Democrat Virginia attorney general candidate who acknowledges that he fantasized about killing a Republican opponent.
- Participated in and supported the anti-Trump “No Kings Day” protests on October 18.
- Opposed the Trump Administration’s reconciliation bill, which extended the 2017 tax cuts.
Monday’s AFGE statement “could increase pressure on Democrats to budge from their current stance,” NBC Washington reports, noting that two Democrats and one Independent who caucuses with them currently support reopening the government:
“Three senators who caucus with Democrats have voted with Republicans to pass the bill: John Fetterman, D-Pa., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Angus King, I-Maine.
“Five more would be needed to reach the 60-vote threshold required.”
