Schumer's Big Break
Plus: Rate reductions, Apple encryption, the Mahmoud Khalil case, and more...
Darn. It looks like the government won't be shutting down after all, after Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) signaled he would break with his party and vote for the GOP spending bill after all, which funds the government through the end of September.
The day prior, he had said that his party was "unified" in its opposition to the bill. It's not totally clear what changed. "For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option," he said in a speech on the Senate floor. "It is not a clean CR [continuing resolution]. It is deeply partisan. It doesn't address far too many of this country's needs. But I believe allowing [President] Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option. I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down."
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Schumer is probably correct that a shutdown wouldn't be especially bad for Republicans, who are already focused on slashing the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—a point I've made in multiple recent Roundups. We're already in the era of "malicious compliance," in which bureaucrats try to make the "most painful cuts possible" to prove to the general public how essential they are (or how essential they believe themselves to be). "It's like when there was a two-day government shutdown and they ostentatiously closed the government parks surrounding D.C. and put chains up so the media could come and take video," said Randy Barnett recently on Just Asking Questions. It's quite possible that a full government shutdown—which never actually shuts down the government, but instead furloughs some 900,000 people (who later receive back pay) while 1.4 million continue working—could backfire by giving the Trump administration and Elon Musk more ideas about which departments and agencies to shutter.
Dems are pissed. House Democrats feel like they "walked the plank," one member of Congress tells Axios. "They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light." There's even reportedly some chatter of primary challenges for senators who voted in favor of the spending bill, including—perhaps especially—Schumer. Democrats are showing their vindictive streak and it's not clear what exactly they hope to accomplish from such theatrics.
September rate reductions? "The Federal Reserve will keep interest rates steady through the first half of the year, before delivering two reductions beginning in September," reports Bloomberg per a survey of economists. "Fed officials have signaled they may be on hold for some time amid uncertainty around President Donald Trump's economic policies, particularly on trade. Those policies—both proposed and implemented—also led most economists to dial back their forecasts for growth, while upping their projections for inflation, the survey showed." Note that this is a survey of economists, not a leak from Fed officials, so take it with a grain of salt. Still, it's not a great indicator.
"The Fed is in a very tough spot right now, facing a more stagflationary outlook even as core inflation remains well above its medium-term target," Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Markets, tells Bloomberg. "Uncertainty around the magnitude, duration and targets of future tariffs further complicates the monetary policy outlook. They have the potential to roil monetary policy expectations as well as financial markets."
Importantly, three-quarters of the surveyed economists predict weaker growth in 2025 compared with 2024, while two-thirds anticipate higher inflation—all due to Trump's economic policy agenda.
Scenes from New York: Um, yes. Of course. Sheesh.
spotted in brooklyn yesterday ???? pic.twitter.com/r2dAMAS8E0
— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) March 14, 2025
QUICK HITS
- New York Post version of my padlocked playgrounds piece.
- Check out the latest Just Asking Questions with Tom Woods. Five years after the COVID-19 emergency declarations, what have the people in power learned? (A fat lot of nothing, in my opinion.)
- "British officials have held private talks with their US counterparts in an attempt to resolve concerns that the UK is trying to force Apple Inc. to build a backdoor into Americans' encrypted data, according to people familiar with the matter," reports Bloomberg. "The high-level discussions took place after Apple removed its most advanced encrypted security feature for cloud data in the UK. That was a response to an order by British authorities in January asking the company to circumvent encryption to help them pursue certain national security and criminal investigations." But last month, Tulsi Gabbard, the new director of national intelligence, ordered an inquiry into the encryption issue, calling it a "clear and egregious violation of Americans' privacy and civil liberties."
- A very reasonable take on forcing gender instruction in the classroom, from the wonderful Lisa Selin Davis.
- An interesting perspective on Mahmoud Khalil from a green card holder (and friend) who very much understands what it means to be an American:
As a green card holder, I had to sign papers for my immigration attorney acknowledging that he had explained to me the consequences of participating in any political protest including *signing petitions.*
We also had to submit all our social media accounts for scrutiny.
I…
— Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) March 13, 2025
- A counterpoint here, from Conor Friedersdorf (who is also great):
I would ask if conservatives nodding along to this post believe it would've been lawful under the First Amendment for a President Harris to deport any green-card holder who objected to DEI or trans athletes participating in women's sports? https://t.co/ZmXkSneKcA
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) March 14, 2025
- "Our species is characterized by low rates of aggression and conflict but extremely high lethality rates when conflict does arise," write John Halstead and Phil Thomson in "The Prehistoric Psychopath" at Works in Progress. "Hunter gatherers prefer restraint because they understand that violent aggression inevitably exposes them to retaliatory violence. In one study of Amazonian societies, 70 percent of killings were motivated by revenge, and Paul Roscoe reports that his database of over 1,000 military actions in New Guinea small-scale societies shows that 61 percent were revenge based. Our violent proclivities are largely retaliatory rather than aggressive."
