The Post-Journal
In Defense of Chuck Schumer
Mar 29, 2025
Rolland Kidder
Our U.S. Senator, Chuck Schumer, has come under some
fairly heavy criticism in the past couple of weeks over his decision to not let
the government default.
The criticisms were framed primarily by those in his
own party who believed that the decision would further enable the President in
his efforts at dismantling the federal government. This impression was
magnified when the President, himself, thanked Schumer for lending support to
the Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government running through
September.
I am not entirely a disinterested observer in all of
this, since many years ago I served with Senator Schumer when he was an
Assemblyman in the New York State Assembly. While there, and in his subsequent
roles in the Congress of the United States, I have found him to be honest and
pragmatic in his approach to government. He also, despite having had big
responsibilities in Washington, has paid attention to his Upstate New York
constituents and visits each county of the state every year.
But, to get back to Senator Schumer’s decision to
support the CR, I thought it made both substantive and political sense.
Substantively, a government shutdown on top of all of the chaos associated with
the dismantling of government and layoffs that have been going on under the
leadership of the President and Elon Musk would have been devastating for the
country.
On the political side of things, though more liberal
members of his party wanted him to stand up to Trump and shut down the
government, Schumer made the pragmatic decision that to do that would just heap
political criticism on the Democrats. A shutdown would have given Republicans,
who now control the levers of power in Washington, an easy scapegoat to blame
Democrats for the additional chaos which would have followed with even more
negative consequences.
Schumer saw through that and did his party and his
country a favor by supporting passage of a bill in the Senate to keep the
government running – though I am sure there was lot in it that he didn’t like
In my view, it took political courage for Schumer to do
this. He is taking some short-term political flack for his position, but, in
the long-run, it was the right and smart thing to do both politically and for
the country.
Chuck Schumer, unlike the President, has a long history
in and knowledge of how government works. In truth, government has an important
role to play in our society. Sometimes it can overreach and become bloated, but
what it does is address needs that the private sector does not or cannot do –
like public safety, public infrastructure, a court system, public schools, food
and meat inspection, environmental standards, healthcare support, running a
National Park Service, maintaining roads and bridges, funding social security
and the military and all of the other myriad of things that we take for granted
in this great country of ours.
So, Senator Schumer, thanks for standing up and doing
the right thing. You may be getting criticism from some quarters, but, for what
it’s worth, your stock is still strong up here, in that part of the state north
and west of the Tappan Zee Bridge – that demarcation line south of which lies
the great majority of this state’s residents and voters.
