Lawmakers are returning to Washington after a month-long recess with little legislative time and a lot to figure out, and most pressing on their to-do list is the one thing they have to address: government funding.
Without some sort of agreement, the government will shut down on Oct. 1, and both parties are bracing for that increasingly real possibility.
Democrats have repeatedly said they will not bend to the GOP’s demands on funding — not without some agreement on future rescission packages and cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency — and Republicans have maintained they’re negotiating in good faith, even if they’re unwilling to take the possibility of more rescission bills off the table.
“We have to make it clear that Republicans are being reasonable in providing serious offers to Democrats,” Sen. Thom Tillis told NOTUS over the August recess. “So that if we shut down the government, they get full title for the responsibility of shutting down the government.”
Tillis said that means “no games, no hidden agendas.”
“Just straight up a serious proposal, fair proposal, to Democrats,” he continued. “And they should accept it.”
Tillis, however, said that before President Donald Trump unveiled a new element of his agenda Friday: a request to rescind $4.9 billion in foreign aid. Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Appropriations Committee, scoffed at the proposal, but no matter what happens with the rescission request, Democrats are saying it makes a government funding deal even harder.
Sen. Chris Murphy wrote on X that the pocket rescission meant Trump was “rooting for a shutdown.”
“He knows he has created a huge problem because now any budget deal with Republicans isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” Murphy said. “He’s not even pretending to follow the law.”
Democrats have maintained that any appropriations deal must be accompanied with some agreement — either in writing or another form — that Trump won’t simply undo Democratic spending priorities through a rescission. Republicans have thus far resisted those attempts. But with the pocket rescission gambit, Trump is signaling even more defiance.
Not only will he not play nice, he won’t even pretend to play along with Democrats.
“Republicans are once again abandoning the bipartisan appropriations process to pursue an extreme agenda that undermines America’s national security,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a Friday statement. “If there is a government shutdown, it will directly result from an out-of-control administration and compliant House Republicans who have spent this year focused on raising costs and ripping healthcare away from everyday Americans instead of making life better.”
During the last round of funding negotiations in March, Democrats spent weeks arguing amongst themselves whether they should go along with a GOP bill to keep the government open. Republicans had written a pseudo-continuing resolution, with hundreds of anomalies, and hoped Democrats would vote for the bill over a shutdown.
In the House, Democrats were almost entirely united against the proposal. They wanted Republicans to come back to the negotiating table and work with them on a bipartisan deal. But in the Senate, where government funding is subject to a 60-vote threshold, Democrats were deeply divided over the best approach.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer swore there weren’t enough Democrats willing to support the legislation. And then, just a day later, Schumer and nine other Democrats supported the measure, averting a shutdown but handing Republicans their preferred funding vehicle.
Soon after, Schumer faced calls to step down as leader — with the other nine Senate Democrats also subject to intense scrutiny from inside and outside the Capitol. Even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke against the decision.
Now, Democrats are once again under immense pressure, carefully weighing the benefits and drawbacks of a funding showdown.
“Everything should be on the table,” Rep. Robert Garcia told NOTUS earlier this month. “And if we need to stand on principle and force the administration and the government to not make these horrific cuts, I think that’s something that we have to do.”
“Ideally we’re going to negotiate something,” he continued. “I think Leader Jeffries is very aware of the stakes.”
Striking bipartisan deals hasn’t been a particular specialty for Democrats and Republicans this Congress. Reconciliation negotiations entirely boxed out Democrats from the legislative talks. Republicans also unilaterally voted to rescind a batch of government funding that had previously been appropriated on a bipartisan basis. And the last round of government funding didn’t come in exchange for any particular wins for Democrats.
This time, Democrats are signalling they will seek concessions.
At least one Democrat, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, is insisting that Democrats shouldn’t accept any funding bill that doesn’t rescind the reconciliation bill’s $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.
That’s a steep, likely unrealistic ask. Plenty of Republicans would rather watch the government shutdown — and blame it on Democrats — than agree to undermine their biggest legislative accomplishment. Instead, Punchbowl News reported that Democrats are seriously considering using their leverage to extend Obamacare premium tax credits.
Just before the break, Senate Republicans sought to strike a deal with Senate Democrats on advancing a batch of Trump’s stalled nominees. Republicans threatened that if Democrats didn’t play along, August recess would be delayed. Republicans ultimately caved, allowing everyone to go home without a deal in hand, though they warned there would be rules changes upon their return.
Democrats took a victory lap, saying they’d fended off the GOP’s demands, but Republicans argue it was Democrats who actually lost out on an opportunity.
“This is a case where the Democrats definitely wanted to see some specific agreements on additional funding. They walked away without getting the additional funding,” Sen. Mike Rounds said. “They could have had an agreement with the White House on a number of judges that we’re going to get anyway, or a number of nominations that we’re going to get anyway.”
“Democrats actually were pretty disappointed in the outcome, because I think they thought that they could get some funding put back in place,” Rounds added.
Some Republicans aren’t certain the mood is pointing toward success with this go-around — or at least, toward any semblance of regular order funding.
There have been a few standalone appropriations bills passed out of the House and Senate this term, but getting all 12 bills done in a timely fashion is virtually out of the question.
That means avoiding a shutdown would almost certainly entail a continuing resolution. Conservatives especially loathe stopgaps bills, but they may not have another option.
“We’ve done a lot of work on appropriations,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville said in August. “I don’t know how far that’s going to go. I would love not to have CR this year, but you can see what’s coming.”
“I’ve never done a budget,” Tuberville added, “and I’ve been here for five years now, never done one. We just kicked a can down the road.”
Democrats last week began to make their demands for any deal clear. Schumer and Jeffries sent a letter to Thune and Johnson demanding a so-called “Big Four” meeting to discuss the impending shutdown. The Democrats pressed their GOP colleagues to answer whether they expect another round of rescissions, or their plans to address Medicaid cuts in the GOP reconciliation bill, implying Democratic votes depend on those answers.
“As we made clear earlier this month, Democrats stand ready to work together to lower healthcare costs for the American people, while responsibly completing the appropriations process,” the letter read.
Of course, there is virtually zero chance Republicans will undo the work of the reconciliation bill, including on health care. And Republicans have repeatedly suggested they see more rescissions — or even another reconciliation bill — as possible.
Other Democrats have suggested they may want to see action on Trump’s takeover of the District of Columbia in exchange for funding agreements.
When NOTUS talked to Virginia Rep. Suhas Subramanyam in August, he said he expected leaders would bring up D.C. “as one of the issues we want fixed.”
“We need to use every piece of leverage that we have,” Subramanyam said.
But Republican leaders are optimistic about their odds going into negotiations with Democrats next week. They have the numbers in the House. And they seem ready to start playing the blame game with Democrats before folks are even back in town.
When asked if there could be a shutdown, Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, predicted there wouldn’t be one.
And when asked if Democrats were willing to come to the table, Hudson had only a brief response: “I hope so.”