Congress has only been back in session one week and MAGA Republicans on Capitol Hill are once again threatening Americans’ jobs and paychecks by following Donald Trump and JD Vance’s orders to force the country to the brink of a shutdown to advance their Project 2025 policies: forcing cuts to veterans’ health care, harming small businesses hit by natural disasters, and giving billionaire tax cheats a get-out-of-jail-free card.

With less than two months until Election Day, Republicans in Congress have only brought chaos at the expense of working families while blocking commonsense, bipartisan deals to secure the border, codify Roe, protect IVF and contraception, and lower taxes for middle class Americans – all at Trump’s behest. Republicans’ control of the House has turned this Congress into “the most unproductive in decades,” showing once again that MAGA Republicans would rather play political games than make government work for the American people.  

Donald Trump and now JD Vance are urging MAGA Republicans to shut down the government to advance their dangerous Project 2025 agenda. 

NBC News: “‘I would shut down the government in a heartbeat if they don’t get it,’ Trump said on the ‘Monica Crowley Show’ last week.”

“‘It should be in the bill. And if it’s not in the bill, you want to close it up,’ he said. ‘So I’m not there but, you know, I have influence.’”

CNBC: “Trump tells Republicans to shut down government if hard-line voter ID bill gets cut from spending bill”

“Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday said congressional Republicans should pursue a government shutdown if they cannot attach a hard-line voting bill to the temporary funding resolution that would keep the government open.”

Vance: “…And so yeah, man, why shouldn’t we be trying to force this government shutdown fight to get something out of if that’s good for the American people? 

Republicans in Congress are threatening a shutdown in order to push Donald Trump and JD Vance’s extreme Project 2025 agenda at the expense of our veterans, small businesses, and hard working Americans. 

Both Project 2025 and Congressional Republicans are pushing a proposal that would harm veterans and their families’ hard-earned health care.

• Mandate for Leadership, pg. 650: ”The next Administration should explore how VASRD [The VA’s Schedule for Revising Disabilities] reviews could be accelerated with clearance from OMB to target significant cost savings from revising disability rating awards for future claimants while preserving them fully or partially for existing claimants.”
• White House Fact Sheet, on the GOP continuing resolution: “Absent fully addressing a shortfall in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care, VA would be forced to make difficult tradeoffs in its efforts to preserve quality veteran care. VA would need to undertake reductions in overall staffing levels that may impact access to care for veterans across clinical programs. Veteran experience may be impacted across many different functional areas, including medical care scheduling and coordination, connecting homeless veterans to permanent housing, caregiver support, and other programs.”

Both Project 2025 and Congressional Republicans are pushing a proposal that would cut the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program, stripping small business owners of crucial loans in times of crisis and jeopardizing the backbone of our economy.

• Center for American Progress: “Project 2025—a far-right road map that would gut the country’s nearly 250-year-old system of checks and balances—proposes, on page 750, an ‘end to SBA direct lending,’ the only instance of which is the disaster loan program. Project 2025 suggests privatization as one potential solution and claims, without evidence, that loan availability ‘reduces individuals’ incentives to purchase disaster-related insurance.’ However, it makes no mention of the skyrocketing costs for families in these situations.” 
• White House Fact Sheet, on the GOP continuing resolution: “The Small Business Administration’s Disaster Loan Program is likely to exhaust available assistance funding early in the new fiscal year, crippling the agency’s ability to provide much-needed help to small businesses working to rebuild after recent disasters, including Hurricanes Beryl and Debby.”

Both Project 2025 and Congressional Republicans are pushing a  proposal that would give billionaire tax cheats a get-out-of-jail-free card on the backs of middle class Americans.

• Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: “All three agendas [includes Project 2025] call for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act’s funding for the IRS. This funding is helping the IRS dramatically improve its customer service, operate the direct file mechanism so people can file their taxes directly with the IRS for free, and modernize and dramatically improve its tax enforcement efforts, which are already paying off in cracking down on wealthy tax cheats.”
• White House Fact Sheet, on the GOP continuing resolution: “House Republicans’ long-term CR would undermine programs that support small businesses and make wealthy tax cheats pay what they owe. 

At Trump’s direction, his MAGA minions in Congress are already threatening to force a government shutdown if they don’t get to push through his extreme Project 2025 agenda.

Rep. Tim Burchett: ‘I’ve continuously voted against CRs. I think it is terrible legislating,’ Burchett said in an interview. 

Rep. Cory Mills: “Mills slammed Johnson’s strategy as a ‘farce’ and said it would do nothing to secure the southern border. ‘If we can’t shut the border down, I’m in favor of shutting the government down,’ Mills told reporters.”

Manu Raju, CNN: “Marjorie Taylor Greene says Mike Johnson should be ready to shut down govt in the fall in protest over Trump verdict and prosecutions. ‘We’re literally a banana republic. So what does it matter funding the government? The American people don’t give a shit,’ she told me.” 

Rep. Diana Harshbarger: “We cannot fund a government that refuses to secure our elections from outside influence. ”