Unsurprisingly, there has been maximum political theater from both sides of the aisle, leading up to and during the current government shutdown. Hopefully, by the time this is published, an agreement will be reached, and the parties can start working together to address the issues at hand. Military pay, safety issues surrounding air traffic control, Food Stamps (“SNAP”), and government health insurance benefits have been among the plot points during the spectacle.
As the drama intensified, we also heard talk of the “nuclear option” to end the Senate Filibuster that allows Senators to delay legislation by continuing to debate the issue. It was not until 1917 that the Senate passed rules allowing a separate vote to end debate. The rules require a super-majority (currently 60 of the 100 senators) to succeed. Filibusters were relatively rare until Senate rules made it easier to invoke and maintain them in the 1970s. You can argue that the Filibuster is inherently undemocratic, but the underlying spirit is to ensure that legislation has bipartisan support. Talk of eliminating the Filibuster – or significantly weakening it – is evidence of the extreme polarization we now endure in our national politics.
No matter how the shutdown ends, with or without a change to the Filibuster, both sides will certainly claim victory in the final act.
Three things you should know about me before reading my proposal. First, I did not vote for Trump or his Democratic Party opponents. I voted for the Libertarian Party nominees. Second, as a conservative-leaning libertarian, I would be happy to see a third or more of the government not just shut down but eliminated. Third, I have been opposed to the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” aka “Obamacare”) from the beginning, though I benefited from the tax credits for several years.
With that in mind, I suggest that Congress consider legislation to insulate certain “essential” workers and benefits from government funding shutdowns. This would take the form of a bill requiring the government to maintain certain functions, activities, and payments as currently legislated, even if Congressional failures led to a shutdown of the broader federal government. Think of this as a permanent Continuing Resolution for a subset of the federal government. Such a bill could consider the following:
First: A provision to acknowledge uniformed members of the military as essential and require that they are paid throughout any shutdown, regardless of the length. Seems to me the Republicans would have no problem with this. I like to think the Democrats would approve it as well. As an anti-war, peace through strength parent of two Marine veterans, I believe uniformed military personnel are essential workers. The fact that some military families qualify for SNAP or other welfare benefits is troubling enough. The fact that they might not be paid for the sake of political theater is obnoxious. I would never vote for someone who argued against this provision.
Second: A provision acknowledging that Air Traffic Controllers and the staff required to directly support air traffic control operations (but not the entire FAA) are essential workers and will be paid throughout any shutdown. Air transportation has a significant effect on economic activity. But more importantly, there are critical safety issues. The role is incredibly stressful. Increasing that stress by not paying them – and thereby reducing our safety – is abusive and idiotic. If the government expects them to work, they should be paid. If not, then shut the entire thing down and make everyone wait for their Amazon purchases to be delivered across the country by truck.
Third: A provision to continue SNAP and other welfare funding for up to six months during any government shutdown. I am fine with a minimal safety net, and while I might argue for lesser benefits in some programs and tighter qualification criteria, yanking these benefits from those who are truly dependent on them is not reasonable. No government shutdown has lasted even two months, so this would at least give the beneficiaries some time to prepare. It would be interesting to see how Congress would address this in a bipartisan manner and what programs they would include.
There are several issues the Democrats sought to leverage during the shutdown. One key issue is the end-of-year expiration of enhanced health insurance tax credits available under the Affordable Care Act. These enhancements were established in 2021 to deal with COVID issues and were originally set to expire at the end of 2022. They were extended by Congress through 2025 during the Biden administration. One could argue that the reset to pre-COVID subsidy levels should not be an issue. If such a reset would be as catastrophic as the Democrats claim, it is evidence that the underlying ACA framework has always been flawed. The catastrophe claims also prove the adage that once established, a government benefit is hard to eliminate or even reduce.
Despite the shutdown, ACA tax credits would have continued through the end of the year, but there was significant uncertainty about what would happen in 2026. Including these as a welfare benefit in my third provision above would ensure the subsidy remains available for those who qualify. Yes, the benefits would be reduced in accordance with current legislation, but there would be certainty in knowing those reduced benefits would continue.
Though I would approve the inclusion of the ACA in this proposal, even some Democrats acknowledge that it did not achieve the underlying goal of reducing healthcare costs. I still hope for the “repeal and replace” Republicans have long promised.
As usual, Congress is play-acting instead of doing its job. It would be nice if we could regularly refresh our representatives, get new ideas, and have them focused more on solutions and less on their political survival. Ah, term limits – a discussion for another day.
David Butler is a husband, father, grandfather, business executive, entrepreneur, and political observer.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.