Why Should Delaware Care?
The Trump administration is pushing for massive cuts to federal spending, and has withdrawn money that Congress had already approved. But that has sparked fierce Democratic backlash, with Delaware’s lawmakers now saying they would rather risk a federal government shutdown than accept a Republican budget.
With three weeks until a deadline for Congress to fund federal agencies, Delaware’s two Democratic senators say they would rather see the government shut down than vote for a bill that includes sweeping spending cuts pushed by Republicans.
Last week, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons told NPR that he would not vote for any bill that includes measures that allow President Donald Trump to cut spending for health care, foreign aid, and other federal programs.
The comments are noteworthy for the Delaware politician who has built a name as a Democrat willing to work with Republicans.
Coons’ comments also represented a firmer stance than he conveyed just a month ago to Spotlight Delaware, saying then that a government shutdown would depend on whether Trump “and House Republicans make outrageous demands in the end-of-year process.”
“It’s been a chaotic year. The larger question is, ‘What’s better for the American people, having a fully funded government that provides a broad range of support and services, or having whole agencies and departments shut down?’ I think the former,” he said on Aug. 4.
Since then, Republicans have vowed to make sweeping cuts to government spending. Additionally, Trump last month announced that his administration would cancel almost $5 billion in foreign aid that Congress had previously approved.
That decision, known as a pocket rescission, particularly vexed Democrats.
“There are so many issues, particularly with what we’ve just witnessed with that ‘big ugly bill,’ in addition to them clawing back money,” Coons’ counterpart Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester said Friday during a press event she held for a housing initiative.
When asked about the impending funding deadline, Blunt Rochester said she shares Coons’ sentiment in supporting a government shutdown if the GOP pushes its funding cuts forward.
Last week, Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson cited federal government debt at $37 trillion as the reason his party is pushing for austerity. He also said that if a government shutdown were to occur, it would be a result of Congressional Democrats rejecting what he called “common sense solutions.”
White House officials did not respond to a request to comment on this story.
The process
In February, Trump first submitted a budget request to Congress, officially kicking off negotiations over how to fund the government in the subsequent fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
On April 10, Congress passed a bill called a “Congressional Budget Resolution,” which outlined the spending priorities of Congress.
Lawmakers then use the budget resolution to guide their appropriations process, during which the House and Senate Committees divide spending into 12 appropriation bills. All bills must pass both chambers of Congress and be signed by Trump.
If all bills are enacted before Oct. 1, the federal fiscal year begins with a full budget in place and agencies operate as normal.
If not, Congress must pass a continuing resolution or stopgap bill, which is commonly done to temporarily extend funding and avoid a government shutdown.
But Congress has yet to pass any of the 12 appropriation bills for this year.
A government shutdown would halt all non-essential government functions and result in furloughs for federal employees and delayed pay for essential workers. It would also disrupt services like passport and visa processing, access to national parks, and the issuance of business and home loans.
The most recent shutdown happened during Trump’s first term in 2018 and lasted 35 days. It was the longest government shutdown in U.S history and was caused by a dispute between Trump and Democrats in Congress over the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Compromise ‘increasingly unlikely’
A budget compromise for this year is becoming “increasingly unlikely” as Democratic lawmakers stand firm against GOP plans to cut federal agencies and President Trump’s push for budget restraints, according to a spokesperson from Sen. Coon’s office.
Lawmakers on both sides are now trying to work on a short-term funding bill that would fund the government at current levels for a limited amount of time as they work to resolve their spending disputes, as reported by the New York Times.
Most recently, Reuters reported that Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said that the White House has suggested implementing a temporary funding bill until the end of January to allow more time to approve a final budget.
The stop gap bill would avert a government shutdown, but tensions remain high between Democrats and Republicans after President Trump demonstrated his willingness to override Congress’s authority last month when he announced his administration would cancel almost $5 billion in foreign aid late in a pocket rescission.
Before that, Trump and Republican lawmakers passed a bill in July that canceled $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding, which had also been previously approved.
The moves were met with immediate backlash from Democratic lawmakers, including Coons, who said the president’s actions were unconstitutional.
“President Trump and his allies in Congress have already been shutting down whole parts of the government, as was just reported, through rescissions and now through unconstitutional and dangerous pocket rescissions,” Coons said in the recent NPR interview.
Coons cited a bill passed in July, called the Recissions Act of 2025, which canceled nearly $9 billion in already-approved funding for the US Agency for International Development, State Department, among other agencies and organizations, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“We’re going to stand up to his overreach. And I’m not going to go along with keeping the government open unless they change course,” he said.
Blunt Rochester also noted that Trump’s decision to pull funding undermined Congress’s power to determine how federal agencies are financed. She also commented on the effects of provisions recently passed under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which are set to impact Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act.
The cuts are set to increase the number of uninsured Americans by 10 million by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“The fact that Republicans are willing to do that shows who they are,” she said. “Every single person is going to feel the impacts of these health care changes that they made in that bill.”
Coons’ spokesperson noted that Democrats proposed rolling back the Medicaid cuts in the potential temporary funding bill as a key concession.
The federal government is currently being funded by a stop gap measure that was greenlit in March, passing after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and nine colleagues voted to allow the GOP-written bill to advance.
The March bill also did not extend an Affordable Health Care premium tax credit past 2025 – which will force premiums to rise for millions of people who buy health insurance from the federal marketplace, according to KFF, a non-partisan nonprofit that studies health policy.
Coons and Blunt Rochester both voted against the March stopgap bill.
