The US government yesterday was heading toward a shutdown, with funding expiring at midnight, and Democrats and Republicans digging in on their respective demands.
A last-gasp meeting at the White House on Monday yielded no breakthrough on the issue, with US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat, saying afterward that “large differences” remained between both sides.
His party is seeking to flex its rare leverage over the federal government, eight months into US President Donald Trump’s barnstorming second term that has seen entire government agencies dismantled.
Photo: Bloomberg
Rules in the 100-member US Senate require government funding bills to receive 60 votes — seven more than the Republicans control.
Unless the US Congress passes a bill before midnight to fund federal operations, the government would partially close and plunge Washington into a new round of political crisis.
A government shutdown would see nonessential operations grind to a halt, leaving hundreds of thousands of civil servants temporarily without pay and payment of many social safety-net benefits disrupted.
The White House also upped the ante last week by ordering government agencies to prepare for layoffs that would go beyond the usual practice of temporary furloughs during a shutdown. The move would add to the pain of government workers after large-scale firings orchestrated by tycoon Elon Musk’s US Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year.
Government shutdowns are deeply unpopular in the US, and Democrats and Republicans alike try to avoid the scenario — while blaming the other camp should a closure arise.
“This is purely and simply hostage-taking on behalf of the Democrats,” US Senate Majority Leader John Thune said of Schumer’s demands.
Republicans have proposed to extend current funding until late next month, pending negotiations on a longer-term spending plan.
Democrats want to see hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare spending restored, particularly in the Obamacare health insurance program for low-income households, which the Trump administration plans to eliminate through its so-called “Big, Beautiful” domestic policy bill passed in July.
They also want to block Trump and the Republicans from cutting approved funds later through the so-called “rescissions” process, as they did this summer. The process requires only a simple majority to pass.
“Ultimately he’s the decision-maker,” Schumer said of Trump. “If he will accept some of the things we asked — which we think the American people are for, on healthcare and on rescissions — he can avoid a shutdown, but there are still large differences between us.”
Vice President J.D. Vance accused the Democrats of putting “a gun to the American people’s head” with their funding demands.
“I think we’re headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing,” he said.
The US House of Representatives has already passed a short-term funding extension, and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has sought to force Senate Democrats’ hands by not bringing his chamber back to Washington this week.
Johnson, speaking alongside Vance and Thune, accused the Democrats “trying to bring in extraneous issues” instead of accepting his chamber’s “clean” proposal to extend funding.
“If the Democrats make the decision to shut the government down, the consequences are on them, and I think it’s absolutely tragic,” he said.
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