Bessent, Trump urge ending the Senate filibuster; as 2026 budget looms
Dec. 27 (UPI) — President Donald Trump and Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent urged an end to the Senate filibuster rule ahead of an anticipated budget battle in January.
Bessent submitted an op-ed that The Washington Post published on Saturday and blames Senate Democrats and the filibuster for blocking passage of a resolution to keep the federal government open while negotiating the 2026 fiscal year budget and causing a record 43-day shutdown of the federal government.
“The American people are just now emerging from the longest and most devastating government shutdown in U.S. history,” Bessent said.
“While the blame lies squarely with Senate Democrats, we cannot ignore the weapon they used to hold the country hostage: the legislative filibuster,” Bessent wrote.
With the continuing resolution expiring on Jan. 30, Bessent said there is a strong likelihood that Senate Democrats again will use the filibuster to block passage of a budget and force the government to close again.
“Democrats inflicted tremendous harm on the nation, including $11 billion in permanent economic damage” as the federal government was “held for ransom by the left’s demands,” Bessent said.
He said the shutdown caused the nation to lose 1.5 percentage points in gross domestic product growth during the fourth quarter, triggered 9,500 canceled flights and caused 1.4 million federal workers to miss their paychecks.
He called the filibuster a “historical accident that has evolved into a standing veto for the [Senate] minority and a license for paralysis.”
The Constitution does not mention a filibuster, and its “framers envisioned debate, but they expect majority rule,” Bessent said.
He said the filibuster has its roots in an 1806 Senate rules decision that deleted a “previous question” motion, which unintentionally removed the Senate’s mechanism for ending debate with a majority vote.
Senators later realized they could “delay or block” legislative action with unending debate, and just the threat of a filibuster is enough to trigger the filibuster rule requiring a supermajority of 60 votes to end it, Bessent explained.
He said it is likely that Senate Democrats again will force the federal government to shut down at the end of January by blocking the 2026 fiscal year budget vote.
President Barack Obama called the filibuster a “‘Jim Crow relic,'” but Bessent said Senate Democrats always use it to their advantage whenever possible, and the president agrees.
“It’s time to end the filibuster,” Trump said while agreeing with Bessent in a social media post that includes Bessent’s op-ed.
He also told Politico that the GOP must end the filibuster when interviewed on Friday night.
Doing so will help his administration to undo damage that he said was caused by the Biden administration and led to very high inflation that he is trying to fix to make life more affordable in the United States, Trump said.
The president has urged Senate Republicans to end the filibuster as soon as possible and said Senate Democrats will do it the first chance that they get when they eventually win a majority in the Senate.
Senate Democrats in September and afterward overwhelmingly opposed a clean continuing resolution to keep the federal government open and instead submitted a resolution that would add $1.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of December.
Senate Democrats control 47 seats, including two occupied by independents who caucus with Senate Democrats, while the GOP controls 53 seats, so neither party can overcome the filibuster rule without help from the other.
The Senate GOP could not muster the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster rule until eight Senate Democrats joined with most Senate Republicans to support the continuing resolution to end the 43-day government shutdown that began when the 2026 fiscal year started on Oct. 1.
Senate Democrats in 2022 tried to end the filibuster rule but could not obtain a simple majority due to opposition from Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, both of whom were Democrats but have retired from politics.