Hours after the government shutdown began, the Trump administration hit back at top Democrats in a pointed way.
White House budget director Russell Vought said the Transportation Department would freeze $18 billion meant to improve New York City’s trains and subways, ostensibly because it doesn’t have the staff to look over the contracts because of the shutdown.
But let’s be real. This is payback. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries represents Brooklyn, while Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer represents New York state.
In a normal administration, the announced freeze would be seen as a temporary ploy. Eventually, the White House and Democrats would come to an agreement, the shutdown would end, and construction would begin in New York City. This time, though, there’s no guarantee. Because the Trump administration has used what’s known as rescissions to refuse to spend the money Congress has appropriated. That context makes it impossible for Democrats to trust that Trump will honor any deal they make, which, therefore, makes it harder to end the shutdown.
The Trump administration’s dramatic overhaul of the way the federal government works can only mean more dysfunction in the future.
The Trump administration’s dramatic overhaul of the way the federal government works, with the implicit blessing of the Supreme Court and Republicans in Congress, can only mean more dysfunction in the future. The shutdown is only the beginning.
The chief architect of this new system is Vought, whose previous gig was helping put together Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative manifesto. Following this blueprint, the Trump administration revived the practice of rescissions — most infamously to target foreign aid.
In the past, a president who wanted to cut such aid might have made his case to Congress. His party’s leaders would have considered the proposal, perhaps scaling it back or even shelving it. If a bill were filed, then the other party’s lawmakers would have a chance to fight or amend it. Everyone from lobbyists to grassroots groups would have weighed in, and if the bill were to become law, even over the president’s objection, the president would honor it.
This was the process James Madison outlined in Federalist No. 62. The goal was to slow down the process of legislating, avoiding hastily written laws and providing more stability for the country. The alternative, Madison said, would be a constantly changing code of laws, which he argued would make it impossible for Americans to plan for their futures.
We are now living under the alternative. Rather than let Congress debate foreign aid cuts in the usual way, Trump named billionaire federal contractor Elon Musk to a hastily assembled task force this year that froze all spending, terminated contracts, fired thousands of workers around the globe and physically locked others out of the U.S. Agency for International Development headquarters in Washington.
Months later, Trump asked Congress to approve the cuts, ex post facto, and Congress meekly complied. The Supreme Court also allowed the freeze to continue in an unsigned order on the shadow docket, which meant the funding essentially expired at the end of the fiscal year, just before the shutdown.
Given that Trump is holding hostage money that Congress already appropriated to help their voters, imagine Jeffries and Schumer agreeing to end the shutdown on Trump’s terms so that the money will go through. What guarantee do they have an agreed-upon deal will be honored? After the shutdown ended, Trump could just refuse to spend the money. And the Supreme Court would most likely let Trump do what he wants. That leaves Trump’s word, which is about as valuable as an NFT of him dressed like an astronaut. Ironically, Trump’s usurping Congress’ power of the purse leaves him weaker during this standoff, as there’s really nothing he can offer that they can really believe he will do. There are larger problems, too. In that Federalist paper, Madison outlined the problems with a system in which no one “who knows what the law is today” can “guess what it will be tomorrow.” Business owners won’t risk their money on new plans that might be overturned. Farmers and factory owners won’t begin work that might go to waste when the law changes. And everyone will lose respect for the government that shifts and sways. The only people who benefit in this kind of system, Madison argued, were a handful of rich people who could take advantage of the chaos to make money. It would be a government of “the moneyed few,” he said, not the “mass of the people.” People, in other words, like Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The shutdown is the most visible negative effect of this new constitutional order so far. But it’s only the beginning of the problems we’re going to see under it.
Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for MS NOW. He has previously worked for such outlets as Time magazine and Bloomberg News. He teaches journalism at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies and is the creator of Your First Byline. 
