MAGA Shutdown: Extreme and Dangerous
Extremists are calling the shots in the U.S. House of Representatives. They’ve taken total control.
MAGA Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene are threatening to shut down the government in order to force Congress to pass extreme abortion bans and take away funding for safe drinking water, children’s cancer research and the Social Security Administration.
A MAGA shutdown would be disastrous for millions of Americans, especially working families, veterans, children and seniors who could face delays to critical benefits.
Most Extreme MAGA Demands:
Click here to read the full memo on these cuts and demands.
- Strip support for nutrition assistance to children and vulnerable families like the SNAP program – specifically slashing access to fruit and vegetables.
- Cut funding for the administration of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – potentially doubling wait times for seniors, families, and people with disabilities to access their benefits.
- Slash funding to K-12 education, firing 200,000 teachers, aides and other school professionals and impacting 26 million students; eliminating access to early childhood education for over 50,000 children through cuts to Head Start.
- Cutting billions in life-saving medical research for children, cancer patients, and maternal health research through NIH and the National Cancer Institute.
- Restrict abortion access, including for veterans and active military, and limit access to the abortion medication mifepristone.
- Cut funding for rural broadband by 23%.
- Cut funding for local and federal law enforcement, including FBI and federal prosecutors; cuts Byrne grants; and cuts to Missing and Exploited Children Program.
- Slash funding to provide safe and clean drinking water and to protect children from lead poisoning.
- Eliminate funding for election security grants and prohibit voter registration programs, making elections less safe and making it harder to vote.
- Cut funding for housing assistance programs for low-income and rural families, opening the door for evictions during the holiday season.
- Allow discrimination against LGBTQ people, including same-sex marriage and eliminating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act grants.
- Eliminates crucial job training programs for seniors, young people, and adults struggling to find employment, and eliminates the federal work study program, which allows low-income students to work their way through college.
By the Numbers
4 of the 12
appropriations bills make cuts to law enforcement
7 out of 12
appropriations bills include restrictions on abortion
12 out of 12
appropriations bills include anti-LGBTQ attacks, including 11 bills that allow discrimination against same-sex marriage
Some Extreme Republicans Want a Shutdown No Matter What:
- Byron Donalds: “I’m not afraid of shutdowns […] American life doesn’t halt because government offices are closed …”
- Eric Burlison: “I’m not afraid of a shutdown.”
- Tim Burchett: said a shutdown “doesn’t bother him.”
- Ralph Norman: “If a shutdown occurs, then so be it if they’re not gonna stick to what [Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)] agreed to, which is starting on a path of financial security, which we don’t have.”
- Ralph Norman: “We’re going to use our votes to defund as many things as we can. […] C.R.? I’m not voting for it as many aren’t, because it funds all the bad things we say we are against.”
- Ralph Norman: “If we can’t come to an agreement on firm cuts, the country is on life-support. I don’t support bankruptcy. So when it comes to a government shutdown, let’s have it until we get numbers that make sense to the American people. What we are asking for is not out of the question. The government shut down the businesses over a stupid COVID shot. They shut down education, took children out of classrooms. If that is what it takes, we will do it.”
- Bob Good: “We should not fear a government shutdown.
- Andy Ogles: “Let’s shut down the government.”
- Anna Paulina Luna: “Shut it down.
Other MAGA Republicans Are Willing to Hold the Government Hostage if Their Radical, Deeply Unpopular Demands Are Not Met:
- Marjorie Taylor Greene: “I will not vote to fund the government if Congress doesn’t do this: – Impeachment Inquiry vote on Joe Biden – Defund Biden’s weaponization of government – Eliminate all COVID vaccine and mandates – No funding for the war in Ukraine”
- Matt Rosendale: “We are not going to be distracted by a shiny object saying, ‘if you don’t get this continuing resolution passed, we won’t be able to pursue the impeachment inquiry,’ […] That’s nonsense.”
- Matt Rosendale: “Why would I vote to extend spending at levels that I voted against, or the policies that I voted against? […] Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against spending at these levels. And for Leader McCarthy, Speaker McCarthy, to come out now and say that he wants us to extend that is absolutely insane.”
- Chip Roy: “Under no circumstances will I support a ‘continuing resolution’ to fund the government at the bloated, corrupt 2023 levels… and in particular, that funds DHS and DOJ without massive, immediate, actionable reforms […] I might — might — support a short-term series of 24-hour ‘CRs’ to create maximum pain for Congress to do its damned job.”
- Chip Roy: “If we want to try to get it across the finish line this week, I’m certainly open to having those conversations, but only if we get the policy changes that need to occur […] Why would I fund transgender surgeries? Why would I fund the continued diversity, equity, inclusion officers that are dividing the Pentagon?”
- Ryan Zinke: “It doesn’t shut down 75% of the government plus, so all that it really hurts is the military and those types of areas that is an unintended consequence… It’s a lot of show, no substance.”
- Michael Cloud: said “the long-term win” of achieving conservatives’ desired spending cuts would outweigh any short-term discomfort. “We’ve got to be willing to stand strong on those principles even if it means a difficult news cycle or the way people are going to spend things for a couple weeks.”
- Ronny Jackson: “I WILL NOT vote for any continuing resolution that doesn’t smash Biden’s DOJ into a million pieces…”
- Tony Gonzales: “America demands a secure border. I am a NO on any Continuing Resolution that only kicks the can down the road. Lock Congress in a room until we pass a conservative budget void of excess financial waste.”
- Ralph Norman: “Without these spending cuts, we’re a ‘no’ vote. I say ‘we’ – me and a good many others […] I’d rather shut the government down.”
- Ralph Norman: “We’re going to have a shutdown, it’s just a matter of how long […] We believe in what we are doing. The jury will be the country. And the jury is fed up with reckless spending.”
- Eli Crane: “The only way we’re going to see meaningful change in this town is through force.”