When Nevada Senators Jackie Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto joined with six other Democratic Senators (i) to abandon their party’s majority and hold the line against the recent Congressional shutdown they aided and abetted, Donald Trump’s corrupt move to take 2026 appropriations authority away from Congress (ii) while illegally impounding 2025 funds to support only his own personal policy choices.
The over 40-day 2025 shutdown began when fiscal 2026 appropriations negotiations collapsed, primarily over Trump’s desire not to extend the healthcare subsidy extensions while pushing for Medicaid cuts.
Without appropriations, a shutdown became inevidable allowing Trump managed Senate Republicians to coerce Masto and Rosen, and six other Democats to join with them to end the shutdown on a Trump corruption based promise to hold a vote on extending Affordable Care Act tax credits, possibly in December along with a promise that Trump will allow the rehiring federal workers (including air traffic controllers) laid off during the shutdown, with backdpay, at least through January.
Those alleged benefits come with a near certainty that Trump will not allow Republicans to keep their promises, while simultaneously continuing policies that, among other things, decrease federal employment, reduce food assistance, and increase healthcare costs.
Further, withholding food assistance payments had already drawn court disapproval, and Trump appeared to be backing down on that issue. And, the potential rehiring of furloughed federal workers during the shutdown was an inevitable action anyway, as pressure continued to build. All of which makes the decision to support Trump-managed Republicans all the more disengenous.
More importantly, voting in favor of funding a corrupt Trump government is an act of complicity in that corruption, whereas the resistance, as supported by the majority of Senate Democrats, was an attempt to hold the line against such corruption. At the same time, it simultaneously draws media attention to the negative traits of Trump’s funding policies.
The Republicans, led by Trump, are on a roll to dismantle government, replace it with an autocracy, while ending beneficial federal programs to increase income disparity (through tax relief), with the benefits given to the top 0.01 percent.
Rosen and Masto lack the stamina to resist corruption and govern; they have hidden behind their desks in Washington, instead of standing against the Trump agenda, so their abandonment of their party is no surprise.
Rosen’s term ends in 2031, and Masto’s in 2029; both will go down in history as individuals who abandoned Democracy in favor of autocracy and corruption at a critical time, gaining nothing except the disgust of those who had hoped for better.
i.) Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sen Tim Kaine, Virginia, Sen. Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire, Sen Angus King, Maine, and Sen. John Fetterman, Pennsylvania
ii.) Article One of the United States Constitution grants the U.S. Congress the authority to appropriate funds from the Treasury.