In October of 2013, my daughter was completing her master’s degree internship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History when a government shutdown occurred. The Smithsonian was closed for about three weeks, disrupting her internship and her academic quarter.

We blamed the Republicans, as their lack of votes kept the government shut down, causing hardships for federal workers, like we are seeing now. But in 2025, it is the Democrats who are overwhelmingly not voting to simply reopen the government.

The verbiage of leaders for both parties today is hypocritically the polar opposite of what they both were saying in 2013. The Republicans were wrong in 2013, bringing hardships for many and the Democrats are wrong in 2025.

Currently, the House of Representatives, with majority Republican support, has passed a “clean” measure to fund the government. The Senate has held 13 votes, with the overwhelming majority of Republicans voting to open the government without spending demands.

To the contrary, the overwhelming majority of Democrats are voting to keep the government closed unless they get their spending demands.

On Tuesday, the Senate held its 13th vote, requiring 60 favorable votes to pass. It failed 54 to 45 with only three Democrats voting alongside 51 Republicans to reopen the government. The rest of the Democrats are choosing to withhold paychecks to government workers. Including Texans, because Republicans won’t acquiesce to their spendthrift ideas.

This decision by Democrats disregards the nation’s largest federal workers union’s plea to reopen the government, prolonging the inconveniences for members of our military and those government employees, like air traffic controllers, who will not get timely paychecks.

Hopefully, this ends soon.

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Mike Fuljenz, president of Universal Coin and Bullion, taught classes on grading and counterfeit coin detection for over 20 years. He has also assisted the Texas Attorney General with drafting consumer alerts on coins and on counterfeits. He has lectured and conducted training for law enforcement with the Numismatic Crime Information Center. He has been a member of the National Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force, as well as assisting the Federal Trade Commission with their consumer alerts on coins.