I see a lot of social media posts from the right blaming the Democrats for the shutdown, including a comment on a LinkedIn post claiming that Democrats forced a shutdown because they wanted to cut federal funding for rural hospitals and redirect it toward health care for non-citizens.

If this LinkedIn account is genuine, you must respect this guy’s background. But if he really believes this is true, he pays little attention to how government works and even less to politics. This is easily the most egregious disinformation, if not outright lie, I’ve seen on LinkedIn – and that’s a high bar.

Yes, Republicans want you to blame Democrats for their failure to pass a continuing resolution (CR) funding the government and the resulting shutdown. They also want you to think Democrats did this because the CR does not include money to provide health care for illegal immigrants.

This is not what happened. Democrats refused to pass a cloture resolution (more on that later) that would allow a vote on the CR because the “Big Beautiful Bill” cuts funding for Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies and Medicaid. Democrats want this funding restored so that working Americans who get health care through the ACA won’t see their health care costs rise to unsustainable levels, and so that poor Americans, mostly Seniors in nursing homes and children in poor families or with disabilities, would not lose coverage. Cuts to Medicaid have already caused rural hospitals and clinics to close, but Democrats want to stop this, not use it to pay for immigrant health care.

Should Republicans agree to restore this funding, Democrats would vote for cloture, end the filibuster, and allow passage of the CR in the Senate (Republicans in the House have already passed it). A filibuster is a somewhat complicated Senate rule that allows 41 Senators to block legislation, including budget votes, simply by filing that intent. Once upon a time Senators had to hold the floor to continue a filibuster, but they got lazy and made it easy on themselves by changing the rules. Today, simply announcing the intent does the trick.

The key thing to know about the filibuster, besides the 60-vote requirement, is that the Constitution does not require it, nor does Federal law. This is a simple Senate rule, which 51 Senators could change at any time. It was originally designed to require different factions to compromise and write legislation that 60 Senators could support, rather than a simple majority. It had that effect, when segregationists used it to block voting and equal rights laws they saw as extremist, and it has that effect today when budget hawks want to cut social infrastructure spending.

In any event, this means that if Republicans, who hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, wished to end the shutdown they could make this happen simply by changing the rules so that budget or continuing resolution votes cannot be blocked in this way. They have already done this to make it easier for them to approve Cabinet and Court nominations over the objections of Democrats, so ending the filibuster for budget votes would not set a new precedent.

Why they don’t is a good question. Could be that conservatives just hate government so much that closing it looks to them like good policy (except for ICE and the military, I guess). Perhaps they want to use the shutdown to achieve other goals, such as making workforce cuts DOGE didn’t get to, before they end it. Some have speculated that if they brought Congress back to Washington to vote on the shutdown they would have to seat Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) who just won a special election in Arizona. Seating her would create a majority in support of releasing the Epstein Files.

In any event, Democrats have indeed refused to vote for the Republican budget in its current form. They did this because they want health care funding restored. But this does not mean they are to blame for the shutdown. Republicans could end it whenever they want, and it’s time they – and their supporters – own that.