As D.C. turns out the lights, Kansas politicos double down on performative dumbness
The U.S. Capitol can be glimpsed behind a barricade on Sept. 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. The federal government shut down at midnight after parties failed to reach a compromise on funding. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The federal government has shut down! Whatever shall we do?
Possibly have some rest and relaxation for once.
No, no, I need to take this hiccup in funding incredibly seriously. Never mind that the Kansas Republican delegation in Washington, D.C., has beclowned themselves with rhetoric both partisan and incoherent. Remember, these days anyone in the GOP must show fealty to President Donald Trump above all else. Logical thought comes in a distant second.
But with Republicans and Democrats at an impasse over how to keep the wheels of our nation turning, perhaps we should take a look at those comments from Kansas senators and representatives, to see how they’re pitching the whole mess to constituents.
Warning: It’s about to get messy. (Also, some of the statements have been edited for our collective sanity.)
U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann, the 1st District congressman from Kansas, speaks to an audience last year. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)
Rep. Tracey Mann on Twitter: “House Republicans passed a clean, non-partisan CR that keeps the government open so our service members can get paid and our most vulnerable communities can get the resources they depend on.
“The majority of Washington Democrats are happy to shut down the government to hold out for a partisan wish list that adds over $1.5 trillion in new spending on America Last programs.”
Let’s understand something right from the get go. Both parties spend a ton of money. The “Big Beautiful Bill” that Republicans passed this year will cost $3.4 trillion over a decade and $4 trillion if you include interest. Believe it or not, that’s the cheap version. GOP lawmakers reduced the cost by cutting nearly $1 trillion for Medicaid.
Democrats want to restore those cuts and keep paying for Affordable Care Act subsidies. Without that extra spending, health insurance plans for those in the ACA marketplace could nearly double in the new year.
If Republicans wanted to look out for rural hospitals and cancer patients receiving lifesaving health care, perhaps they would talk to Democrats rather than refusing to entertain their proposals. Just an idea.
U.S. Rep.-elect Derek Schmidt appears for a Dec. 17, 2024, recording of the Kansas Reflector podcast. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Rep. Derek Schmidt: “Nearly two weeks ago, the House passed a bipartisan bill to keep the government funded through November 21, while work continues on the full-year appropriations bills. Regrettably, Senate Democrats are insisting on the inclusion of a $1.5 trillion wish list of additional reckless spending instead of passing the House’s continuing resolution. This shutdown is entirely the result of those unreasonable demands.
“We must get our fiscal house in order by restraining spending. We made a good start in the policies that were in the reconciliation bill passed this summer, which included $1.2 trillion in spending reductions over the next 10 years. The funding bills that have passed out of the House Appropriations Committee build on this effort by decreasing spending by an additional $30 billion. We can’t go back to business-as-usual and leave our children and grandchildren no path out of our country’s massive debts.”
Perhaps Schmidt shouldn’t have voted for the budget-busting reconciliation package earlier this year, then!
Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran appears at the grand opening of the De Soto, Kansas, Panasonic Energy Corp. of North America battery plant. (Morgan Chilson/Kansas Reflector)
Sen. Jerry Moran, speaking on the Senate floor: “We are coming to the end of the fiscal year, and not all of the appropriations bills have been approved, although almost all of them have been approved by the Senate Committee on Appropriations and several have been passed here in the United States Senate.
“Every city council or commission, every school board, every local government office in my state passes a budget and then lives within that budget every year. Every local unit of government at home can figure this out, and the U.S. Senate is failing one more time. A shutdown means uncertainty; a shutdown means dysfunction. The issue is the continuing resolution that would fund the federal government until November 21 and is designed to avoid that disfunction, avoid that uncertainty. All that’s required is that we pass the continuing resolution, 60 votes in the U.S. Senate, to keep government functioning, so that we can then pass the remaining appropriations bills.”
Nice words. But underneath, a deadly virus courses through our body politic.
Establishment Republicans like Moran want Kansans to see this situation as part of normal politics. That is, Democrats don’t want to negotiate in good faith and so they’re shutting down the government.
Anyone who has followed a scintilla of news out of Washington, D.C., since Jan. 20 knows that we are not living in an era of normal politics. The Trump administration has systematically withheld, denied or slowed funding for an array of congressionally mandated projects. Remember USAID? Remember widespread firings, seemingly at random, from government agencies? Remember attempts to shut down the Department of Education?
Congress appropriated money for all of these programs. Senators and representatives voted for them. The Trump administration — specifically Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought — has decided to flex its muscles and show that it can do whatever it wants.
Just look at a tweet he posted after the shutdown.
Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled. More info to come from @ENERGY.
The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA
— Russ Vought (@russvought) October 1, 2025
If a Democratic administration were doing this, there’s no question that Republican elected officials would raise a furious stink. But because a Republican administration is doing it, we’ve heard only the tiniest of peeps.
If you want to know why Democrats have taken such an aggressive posture, it’s this. Their Republican colleagues have no way to ensure that any spending deal will be honored by Trump or Vought. Good faith has left the building. Say Democrats reach a deal to increase funding for an imaginary department of widows and orphans. Then the Trump administration decides that it’s going to abolish that imaginary department and spend the money on AI-guided drones meant to kill the homeless.
Who would agree to that deal?
If I were a Democratic legislator — which to be clear I am not and have no desire to be — I would not vote to keep the government open until the administration gave binding assurances that it would not rescind funding. There’s no way that Congress can function in a bipartisan fashion if the executive branch can simply cancel any funding it doesn’t like.
If this ultimately leads to the elimination of the filibuster in the Senate, all the better. We will see what Democrats pass the next time they run the chamber. (Which was the case just a year ago.)
U.S. Rep. Ron Estes, R-Kansas, talks to the audience at a Kansas forum last year. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)
Rep. Ron Estes press release: Estes “announced his request to have his congressional salary withheld due to the government shutdown, caused by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and his Democrat colleagues. The announcement follows Democrats’ refusal to vote for the same clean funding bill they supported during the previous administration. During the last government shutdown in 2019, Representative Estes also requested his salary be withheld.”
That’s nice. He can’t call the Democratic Party by its proper name, but I appreciate the gesture.
U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, pours a serving of milk during a Senate committee hearing to demonstrate his desire to return whole and 2% milk to school cafeterias. (Kansas Reflector screen capture from Marshall’s YouTube channel)
Sen. Roger Marshall: “They lost the election. That elections have consequences. All we’ve asked them to do is continue funding at the levels that they chose, and instead, they want one and a half trillion dollars more. So Chuck Schumer owns this. Their demands are just simply not even worth even considering yet.”
Gosh, this game sounds fun.
Did Marshall accept that elections had consequences during Joe Biden’s presidency? I seem to recall he tried to block Biden from taking office on Jan. 6, 2021, even after insurrectionists sent him scrambling for safety.
Maybe that’s why the prospect of town halls agitates him so much.
Rep. Sharice Davids appears in Kansas City, Kansas, on Feb. 28. She’s the lone Democratic member of the Kansas delegation. (Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector)
Rep. Sharice Davids: “The avoidable government shutdown we’re facing is more than just a political standoff. It will have a severe impact on our economy and cause real harm to hardworking Kansans — delaying payments to our military and federal employees, interrupting Social Security benefits, and increasing hunger among women and children.
“As of now, we’ve seen no serious effort from Republican leadership in Washington to work across the aisle on funding the government. Kansans are already feeling the effects of the administration’s reckless policies — rising prices, lost jobs, and cuts to essential services like health care. A shutdown will only make those challenges worse.”
Of course, the Democratic Davids sounds eminently reasonable about the whole situation. This means Republicans will meet in a couple of months to gerrymander her out of her seat.
No shutdown can last long enough.
Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.