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Senator Dave McCormick — a West Point graduate and Gulf War veteran who now serves as Pennsylvania’s junior senator — recently sat down with Ben Shapiro to expose the true motive behind the ongoing funding fight: raw partisan leverage, not responsible governing. McCormick’s point was simple and piercing: Democrats are weaponizing appropriations to extract political victories while ordinary Americans pay the price.
The federal government formally went into a funding lapse on October 1, 2025 after Congress failed to pass appropriations for the new fiscal year, and the standoff has centered on a handful of policy riders and subsidy extensions that Democrats insist must be included. This isn’t high-minded statesmanship; it’s a strategic holdout intended to bend policy outcomes by inflicting pain on the public.
Make no mistake: Democrats are demanding carve-outs and policy wins — notably extensions to Affordable Care Act subsidies and other spending priorities — and are using the shutdown as leverage rather than bargaining in good faith. Conservative Americans should be outraged that our governing process has been turned into a bargaining chip for a party that seems to prefer headlines to solutions.
The human cost is real. Roughly nine hundred thousand federal workers face furloughs while hundreds of thousands more are working without pay, and families across the country watch basic services get tangled in political theater. This is exactly the sort of avoidable harm that should shame any elected official who values people over publicity.
Even the public square is being politicized: airports and agencies are now squabbling over messaging, and Democratic leaders have cried foul over straightforward reminders of who is obstructing funding negotiations. When public servants and travelers become props in a partisan drama, the American people lose — and the responsible path is to reopen government, not manufacture crises for advantage.
That’s why McCormick’s bluntness matters. Conservatives must stop apologizing for defending ordinary Americans and start forcing choices that protect taxpayers and essential services, not special-interest riders. If Republicans stand firm on common-sense funding and refuse to surrender long-term policy fights to crisis tactics, we can break the cycle and return to accountable governance.
This moment calls for clarity and courage: tell Democrats to stop hiding behind shutdowns and bargain like grown-ups, or watch them own the political fallout. The hardworking citizens paying the bills deserve leaders who will end the shutdown now, restore services, and stop letting Washington’s swamp make a show out of our lives.
