Congressional budget deadlock tightens as shutdown fears mount
Benjamin Weiss
WASHINGTON (CN) — As the country braces for a possible government shutdown, Democratic leaders in Congress said Monday they were holding firm in their efforts to extract concessions from Republicans and President Donald Trump in a proposed short-term funding bill.
And as Democrats prepared to meet with the president for eleventh-hour negotiations, they signaled that they would not be moved by assurances from the White House in exchange for their support on such a budget stopgap.
Lawmakers have a little more than one day to hammer out a path forward on the federal budget. The fiscal year, extended since March on a similar spending patch commonly referred to as a continuing resolution, is set to expire at midnight Wednesday. Without a deal, funding for government programs will lapse and send the country into an expensive and costly federal shutdown.
But budget talks on Capitol Hill have been in suspended animation for weeks, as Democrats fume at Congress’ Republican majority for forging ahead with a so-called “clean” continuing resolution — which extends government funding without any additional policy riders — without any input from the minority. Democrats have offered a counter proposal which would keep the federal government online but also extend health care subsidies inked under the Affordable Care Act, set to expire at the end of the year.
The Democrats’ proposal has mostly been a political nonstarter with Republicans as well as Trump, who panned their conditions as “unserious and ridiculous” last week.
But the Republican-led continuing resolution, which cleared the House earlier this month, will need at least some support in the more closely divided Senate. The measure has so far been trapped in the upper chamber with little hope of passing.
Though the White House has been reticent to come to the table with Democrats, the president appears to have changed his mind. Trump last week canceled a meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, but the three men are now rescheduled to meet Monday.
Ahead of that summit, Jeffries said during a news conference that Democrats were determined to address what he framed as a “five-alarm fire” in American health care caused in part by Medicare cuts passed in the Republican-led “Big, Beautiful Bill.” And he reiterated that any legislation aimed at keeping the government open would need to be bipartisan.
“We’re not going to simply go along to get along with a Republican bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans,” Jeffries told reporters. “We’ve made clear that we are willing to find a bipartisan path forward on a spending bill negotiated by Democrats and Republicans, but it has to meet the needs of the American people.”
The top House Democrat also dismissed the notion that his party might be convinced to support a clean continuing resolution if Trump or Republicans committed to discussing a possible extension to the Affordable Care Act subsidies as a separate issue.
“Are you kidding me?” said Jeffries. “These people have been trying to repeal and displace people off of the Affordable Care Act since 2010 … and on behalf of the American people, we’re supposed to simply take their word that they’re willing to negotiate? The American people know that would be an unreasonable thing for us.”
Ahead of Monday’s meeting, the outcome of which is uncertain, both Democrats and Republicans have been laying the groundwork to blame one another for a possible government shutdown.
Republican leaders have accused their colleagues across the aisle of holding the government “hostage” in exchange for their health care concessions. The House Freedom Caucus, the GOP’s ultra-conservative voting bloc of spending hawks, accused Democrats of attempting a “shakedown” on the Trump administration.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, speaking on Fox News on Sunday, suggested that Schumer in particular had bowed to Democrats’ “radical left base” in his opposition to the proposed continuing resolution. The top Senate Democrat voted with Republicans in March to pass a six-month budget stopgap and avert a shutdown.
“What Chuck Schumer was doing in March when he agreed to the government funding resolution was the responsible thing,” Johnson said. “He needs to do that again. This is the exact same scenario … . He is making a very selfish decision here.”
Schumer has reasoned that congressional Republicans are in a politically weaker position now than in March, suggesting Democrats can now resist more strongly the GOP’s effort to bulldoze the minority on government spending.
If Democrats and Republicans fail to reach an agreement, the Senate will need to take up the GOP-led continuing resolution before the fiscal deadline. It’s a steep path to passage for that measure, which will need a handful of Democratic votes to clear a key procedural hurdle that takes 60 votes.
Despite pressure from party leadership, some Democrats may be convinced to flip and keep the government open. New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who voted for the Republican continuing resolution in March, signaled she hadn’t closed the door on doing so again — telling CNN Monday that she was waiting to see how the White House meeting went.
“We ought to be able to keep government open and ensure people can stay on their health insurance,” she added.
If passed, the proposed Republican budget patch would keep government programs funded at current levels through mid-November while lawmakers work on full-year spending bills.