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President Trump signs spending bill ending US shutdown · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Thursday, November the 12th, 2025, and you've joined us for Dinnison Forum's Daily Article Podcast.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome!
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Cultural Theologian Dr. Jim Dinnison wrote today's Daily Article, and I'm Chris Elkins, narrator.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Last night, President Trump signed into law a spending package that reopens the U.S. government drawing the record-long 43-day shutdown to a close.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: The package includes funding for the federal government through January 30th, full year funding for the agricultural department, military construction, and legislative ranch.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Language guaranteeing the reversal of federal layoffs initiated by the Trump administration during the shutdown, and a moratorium on future cuts, and pay checks for federal employees including air traffic controllers, which will send thousands of furloughed government workers back to the job.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the bill postponed the issue that was central to the standoff until later this year, how to address the expiration of enhanced affordable care acc subsidies.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Democrats refused to fund the government without assurances that the subsidies would be extended.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Republicans wanted to fund the government and then debate the subsidies.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: The debate highlighted a strange feature in our federal governance.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Democrats are in minority in both the House and the Senate, so Republicans could presumably have outvoted them and passed the legislation they wanted.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: They did so in the House.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: The measure they approved yesterday and sent to the President for his signature past 222 to 209 largely along party lines.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But they could not do so in the Senate, even though they hold a 53-47 majority.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Only after eight senators, seven Democrats in one independent, agreed to vote with the Republicans could they pass the legislation to the House, which then passed it and sent it to the White House.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reason is the filibuster, a strange component in the Senate's governance.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: You probably didn't get up this morning hoping I would write on it.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nor did I. I had a very different article planned, but after reading today's news of the government reopening and considering what led to it, I decided to write what follows.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reason, as I'll explain, has more to do with our souls than with our governance.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: On September 22nd, 1789, Pennsylvania's senator William McClay wrote in his diary that the quote, design of the Virginians was to talk away the time so that we could not get the bill passed.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote, this occurred in the very first session of the U.S. Senate, the Virginia Senators utilized the right of unlimited debate, a tactic that came to be known as the
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: which ironically means lawless plunderer.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: By the mid-19th century, filibusters became more common as a way of an individual senator or minority party to prevent legislation from passing.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: This led to demands for closure a method of ending debate and bringing a question to a vote.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1917, the Senate adopted a rule allowing for debate to be closed with a two-thirds vote.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1975, the number of votes required for a closure was reduced to 60, where it stands today.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the Senate adopted new precedents in the 2010s to allow a simple majority to
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over the years, when a party has held the majority, some within it have called for abolishing the 60-volt requirement to end debate.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: After all, the voters elected the majority to allow the majority to block their legislative decisions seems undemocratic.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Others have warned that when the other side regains the majority in the future, the current majority will be unable to block legislation to which they object.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: This may seem like in the weeds discussion of an arcane political practice, but the issue has very real and practical consequences.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: The 53 Republicans in the Senate could not pass legislation reopening the federal government without the support of eight Democrats.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Republican Senator Paul Rand voted against the bill.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: From food stamp payments to air traffic issues to furloughed workers, millions of Americans were directly affected as a result.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: The founders created a democratic republic in which the minority has significant rights enshrined in the bill of rights.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you are ever in the minority on a significant issue, you'll be grateful for this arrangement.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: For example, when the so-called equality act was adopted by the Democrat-led House a few years ago, it failed in the Democrat-led Senate because Democrats could not obtain enough Republican support for the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were adamant calls by some Democrats to suspend the filibuster to pass a legislation by simple majority.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: However,
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Democrats Joe mentioned and Kristen Sonema refused to do so, which ensured the act would not proceed.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Since I agree with those who consider the equality act, quote, the most invasive threat to religious liberty ever proposed in America, I am deeply grateful for this outcome.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now to the larger purpose behind this civics lesson I didn't intend to write this morning.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: The whole reason humans construct laws to govern our behavior is that we cannot be trusted to act morally without them.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: The oldest known surviving law code dates to 2,095 BC and includes laws against murder, robbery, and kidnapping.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: from Canaan able to today, sinful people have behaved in sinful ways.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: The fact pertains not only to citizens governed by our laws, but also to those who construct them.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Presidents, governors, mayors, legislators, and judges are no less fallen upon their ascension to office than the rest of us.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: checks and balances that prevent leaders from exercising unaccountable power as laborious and frustrating as they may become at times are essential to protecting some of us from the rest of us.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here we find yet another reason why the gospel is such good news.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Human laws cannot change human hearts.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus can, unlike any other world religion, world view, or system of government,
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: We learned from Psalm 103 verse 12 that he separates our sin from us as far as the east is from the West, berries them in the depths of the sea, according to Micah 7 verse 19, and Isaiah 43 verse 25 in IV, assures us that he remembers your sins no more.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus not only forgive sins, he remakes sinners.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we make Him our Lord, He makes us a new creation as the children of God, stated in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17 and John 1 verse 12.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: admit our lives daily to his spirit, heating Ephesians 5 verse 18.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: He sanctifies us and manifests the character of Christ in us, affirmed by 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 13, Romans 8 verse 29, and Galatians 5 verses 22 and 23.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why living in the spirit is the key to the abundant life of Christ.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it is why sharing Christ with our broken culture, however we can, whenever we can, is our greatest service to our fellow Americans.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our nation's future and flourishing depend not on human governance, but on divine grace.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: John 15 declares, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it never will.