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Senate Democrats again blocked Republicans’ short-term funding extension Tuesday afternoon, further increasing the odds of a partial government shutdown and thousands of federal workers going without paychecks.
Democratic lawmakers in the upper chamber, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., banded together to vote against the GOP’s continuing resolution (CR), a move that marked the second time Democrats impeded the legislation’s progress this month.
Congress has until midnight Wednesday to pass a CR or else the government will shut down. However, the possibility of that happening became increasingly unlikely throughout the day as Republicans and Democrats huddled behind closed doors in separate meetings hours before the vote.
The bill, which was passed by the House GOP earlier this month, failed on a largely party-line vote, 55-45. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was the lone Republican to vote against the bill, while Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nev., and Angus King, I-Maine, crossed the aisle to vote for the funding extension.
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Democrats also tried to advance their own counter-proposal, but that bill was similarly blocked by Senate Republicans.
There is still time to avert a partial shutdown, but the window is closing fast. If Schumer and Thune are unable to find a path forward, it would mark the third shutdown under President Donald Trump.
When asked if he believed a shutdown was inevitable, Trump said, “Nothing is inevitable.”
“But I would say it’s probably likely, because they want to give healthcare to illegal immigrants, which will destroy healthcare for everybody else in our country,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “And I didn’t see them bend even a little bit when I said we can’t do that.”
Republicans want to pass a “clean” short-term extension until Nov. 21 that would give appropriators time to finish spending bills, while Democrats want to extend expiring Obamacare premium subsidies, among multiple other demands.
But the chances of a deal materializing, particularly one that meets Democrats’ demands, are slim. Both Senate leaders traded barbs throughout the day, first on the Senate floor and then in back-to-back press conferences.
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Thune panned Democrats’ push for an extension to the expiring tax credits, which aren’t set to sunset until the end of this year, as well as their other demands to repeal the healthcare portion of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” and clawback canceled funding for NPR and PBS.
Republicans argue that reversing the cuts from Trump’s megabill and undoing the public broadcasting rescission would amount to $1.5 trillion in spending tacked onto their short-term funding extension.
“These are things that they’re demanding as part of their so-called negotiation,” Thune said. “Ladies and gentlemen, there isn’t anything here to negotiate.”
Schumer, however, countered that the decision to shut the government down was “in their court” and charged that Democrats were working to solve the GOP’s “healthcare crisis.”
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Still, despite scoring a meeting in the Oval Office with Trump and congressional Republican leaders, in addition to public guarantees from Thune and Republicans that Obamacare tax credits could be discussed after a shutdown was averted, Schumer demanded that Democrats be cut in on negotiations to craft a bipartisan bill.
Earlier in the day, the top Senate Democrat commandeered a floor chart from Thune that showed how many times Democrats supported CRs under former President Joe Biden. He said that each time, Republicans were involved in the process.
“As leader, I sat down with the Republicans every one of those years and created a bipartisan bill. Their bill is partisan. They call it clean. We call it partisan. It has no Democratic input,” Schumer said. “Thune never talked to me.”
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