Dems’ Shutdown Wish List: $3.9 Million for “LGBTQI+ Democracy” in the Balkans as Americans Go Unpaid

We’re now entering the third week of what Speaker Mike Johnson rightly calls “the Democrat government shutdown.” Two full weeks of Washington theater, except this time the show is on your dime and the people paying the bill are getting ignored.

The Democrats’ reopening demands read like a campus syllabus, not a budget. Voters and federal workers are getting squeezed while Congress argues over priorities.

At the top of their list: a request to spend $3.9 million on “LGBTQI+ democracy grants” in the Western Balkans. It’s hard to sell that as essential when US workers aren’t being paid.

Meanwhile, Border Patrol and front-line services are running into funding walls and small businesses are stretched thin. That’s the backdrop for this spectacle.

“Welcome to day 14 of the Democrat government shutdown,” he said. “Two weeks of Democrats in Congress inflicting untold pain on the American people for nothing other than pure politics.”

Republicans put forward a clean continuing resolution to keep the government operating, and that should have been the end of it. Democrats voted it down even after backing similar fixes before.

This isn’t about budgets. It’s about a party choosing to appease an activist base at the expense of ordinary Americans.

And the $3.9 million line is just one item. The list extends to other overseas projects that belong in foreign-aid debates, not stopgap spending talks.

Democrats also want $24.6 million for climate resilience in Honduras, $13.4 million for civic engagement in Zimbabwe, $2 million to organize for feminist democratic principles in Africa, and $2.9 million for desert locust risk reduction in the Horn of Africa.

Call it waste or call it smugness; either way it’s insulting when grocery bills and mortgages are the real crisis for many families. Washington elites seem convinced their global virtue projects trump paying Americans.

Sneaking in policy changes makes it worse. Their plan would re-add illegal immigrants to taxpayer-funded health care, rolling back the Working Families Tax Cut Act protections and hitting taxpayers with nearly $200 billion in new costs.

They’d also erase modest work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents and lock in COVID-era Obamacare subsidies with no income caps or oversight. That’s a permanent tab, not reform.

Speaker Johnson was blunt: “We are not doing that.” His plain answer landed like relief to lawmakers who don’t want open-ended spending sprees.

When Democrats scream about “Republican obstruction,” remember which side put a simple stopgap on the table. One side offered to keep the lights on; the other came with pronoun grants overseas.

Voters can judge priorities: fund the services and people here first, or keep underwriting foreign pet projects while Americans wait. The choice feels expensive and clear.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is catering to the activist left, the faction Speaker Johnson called the Marxist base. That bloc drives policy choices that keep foreign earmarks in the package while essential services stall.

Republicans offered a focused, short-term fix to protect paychecks and homeland priorities. Democrats walked away to chase ideological giveaways abroad.

Voters will remember who chose priorities; Washington can’t keep pretending every nominee for U.N. virtue needs an American check. The politics of this shutdown are loud, and the math is brutal.