We don't need no water.

The US federal government operates on a fiscal year that begins on October 1 of each year and ends on September 30. By the first day of October, the Congress must have passed a budget, or the government isn't able to pay for stuff.

Sometimes, the Congress can't agree on a new budget in time. In that case, it can pass something called a "continuing resolution," which allows it to continue to spend the same amounts of money on the same things as it did in the budget that is just about to expire. Continuing resolutions are generally pretty short-term – the Congress buys itself time to negotiate a full-fledged budget by moving the deadline out by a few weeks or months. They're also kind of irresponsible. The world situation and the needs of citizens change over time, and the government needs to be able to shut down old programs and start new ones to meet those demands.

If there's no budget and no continuing resolution, then one of the things that the government can't pay for is wages and salaries of government workers. When that happens, the government "shuts down." Almost all government workers are furloughed, ordered not to report for work. A few "essential" employees – members of the US military, for example, and the members of Congress who have to meet and pass a spending bill – are required to report for work without pay. Generally, they get their back pay whenever the Congress finally passes a new authorization to spend money.

But, mostly, government just stops working.

This happens often enough that the Office of Personnel Management has published a 70-page memo about what to do in a shutdown.

Republicans hold the Presidency and a majority in both houses of Congress. Earlier this year, the party used that control and some parliamentary performance art ("reconciliation") to pass a budget for the current fiscal year, 2025. That bill passed well after the start of the current fiscal year because the Congress had passed a series of continuing resolutions prior to it, allowing the government to continue operating.

Republicans named that budget bill the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. I dislike it. It defunds health care for millions of Americans, via cutbacks to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. It uses the money from those cuts to reduce the taxes paid by billionaires and big corporations.

Democrats in the current Congress are, so far, refusing to pass either a budget or a continuing resolution unless the cuts to the health care safety net are reversed. Despite its majority in both houses of Congress, the Republican party needs some Democratic votes. The Senate needs to pass the budget or a continuing resolution with sixty votes, not a bare majority. That rule, called the filibuster, has been a bedrock of Senate deliberation (and, in the past, comity) for more than a century.

Donald Trump was elected to the Presidency in part because he claimed to be a consummate deal-maker. He'd negotiate an end to Russia's war on Ukraine in his first day in office. He'd repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with something much, much better. And, of course, Mexico would pay for the wall.

With time running out to pass a budget bill, there's no attempt apparent at deal-making with the Democrats. Russell Vought, an author of Project 2025 and head of the Office of Management and Budget in the current Trump administration, has threatened to fire, rather than simply furlough, non-essential workers, should the government shut down.

This is a shocking threat. If Republicans don't get their way, then they'll permanently destroy the government's capacity to do work for US citizens. Democrats, Vought says, must agree to cuts to health insurance and other social safety net programs, or he'll blow up the federal workforce.

This is the threat of an abuser: Don't make me hurt you. Except, in this case, "you" is "all Americans."

But of course no one is making Vought, or the President, or the Republican Congress hurt us. They're choosing to do that. And it would be foolish to imagine they'll stop just because we capitulate to them. They haven't so far, and they won't. Abusers never do.

If Vought makes good on his threat, the damage will be dramatic and the pain will be excruciating. Hundreds of thousands of government workers may lose their jobs. Programs on which we all rely will seize up and fail to serve us. But if those things happen, it will be because the deal-promiser-in-chief couldn't get a deal done, and because the administration decided to retaliate on the American people for that failure.

I'm writing this on the morning of Sunday, September 28. Tuesday, day after tomorrow, is the 30th, and the current spending authority runs out on midnight that day. With only Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in front of him, Trump has agreed to meet with the four leaders of Congress (one Republican and one Democrat from each of the House and the Senate).

Here's my prediction for what the next few days hold.

Most likely: Brinksmanship fails, Democrats stand firm. Trump pressures the Senate to revoke the filibuster rule. They do that. They're able to pass this spending bill, and an eventual budget codifying this bill's policy priorities. In the long term, though, the Republican party loses power, because when it is once again in the minority in the Senate, it won't have the threat of a filibuster to bring the majority Democrats to the table.

In that case, the effects of the MAGA policies roll over the American people in the coming months. Folks get sick but can't afford to see a doctor; the working poor in rural areas lose their food assistance. The wealthy, of course, keep partying. Republicans, riding on a very narrow popular vote margin due to Trump's coattails in the 2020 general election, lose enough support to surrender one or both houses of Congress in the midterms. Trump is largely neutered for his last two years in office.

Next most likely: Democrats don't blink, Republicans can't pass a spending bill alone, the government shuts down. Vought, confronted with political reality and Trump's fear of electoral fallout, doesn't follow through on the wholesale firings he's threatened. Still: shutdowns suck, and this one will, too.

Third most likely: Same as the previous paragraph, but Vought fancies himself an Elon Musk. He fires whole government departments. This shutdown sucks way more than any other because the pain is permanent.

In either of those cases, the Republican party hemorrhages support. The midterms swing heavily to the Democrats. Trump loses his ability to govern, as above, but by a much bigger margin.

My "most likely" prediction would be the least painful for the country in the short term. Honestly, though, any of the three would preserve the integrity of the Democratic party and best preserve its authority and ability to protect Americans. There's simply no case in which I would vote for slashing the social safety net, and handing cash to billionaires, as Trump and Republicans demand.

The title of this piece is "We don't need no water." It comes from a 1984 hip-hop hit called The Roof is on Fire by Rock Master Scott and the Dynamic Three:

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire
(We don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn)
(Burn, motherfucker, burn)
The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire
(We don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn)
(Burn, motherfucker, burn)

The MAGA party is in charge. It started this fire. Democrats have no power to put it out – none of my three scenarios results in a good outcome for Americans. We have to let it burn. It will, eventually, burn out.