Congress Is Speeding Toward a Government Shutdown

A government shutdown is set to start in less than two days, and neither party appears to have a politically viable plan to stop it.

The facts of the political drama unspooling on Capitol Hill have remained the same for weeks. Republicans are demanding a stopgap spending bill that extends current funding levels through Nov. 20 with additional money for lawmaker security. Democrats are insisting on health care-related concessions in exchange for their votes — at least seven of which are necessary to reach the 60-vote threshold for passage in the Senate.

Neither party is blinking.

“We want a clean CR. That’s all we want,” Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno told reporters last week, referring to the GOP’s short-term plan known as a continuing resolution.

Congress now has two potential pathways to avoid a shutdown, and they range from improbable to nearly inconceivable.

The first path is that enough Senate Democrats cave and swallow the Republican-led continuing resolution. When the legislation came to the floor two weeks ago, Sen. John Fetterman was the only Democrat to back the bill, and two Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski — opposed it. So, in the next two days, between six and eight Senate Democrats would have to flip on the bill.

There’s reason to believe that’s possible: It’s exactly what Democrats did when presented with a similar spending deadline in March. But Democratic leadership is bullish that won’t happen this time, even if a few senators defect. If anything, a series of events last week emboldened them.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump backed out of a meeting with Senate and House Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, prompting “Trump Always Chickens Out” — or “TACO” — barbs from Democrats. Then on Wednesday evening, Politico reported on an Office of Budget and Management memo directing agencies to prepare for mass reductions in the federal workforce during a shutdown. Jeffries and a cadre of Democratic responded with a collective “Get lost.”

The four corners of congressional leadership are slated to meet with Trump at the White House at 2 p.m. ET Monday. But as for whether that meeting is productive, Schumer told NBC on Sunday, “It depends on the Republicans.”

“We need a serious negotiation,” Schumer said. “And if the president did this meeting he would rant and yell at Democrats and talk about all of his alleged grievances and say this, that and the other thing, we won’t get anything done. But my hope is it will be a serious negotiation.”

Even if the afternoon meeting does happen, Republicans control the show. With Trump in the White House and majorities in the House and Senate, they hold most of the cards in shutdown talks. So far, they’ve used that power to refuse negotiations with Democrats in an attempt to pressure them to accept the GOP version of the spending bill.

Specifically, Republican leaders spent weeks dodging talks hashing out the specifics of Democrats’ demands, seeking to preserve leverage. Democrats are furious about Trump clawing back congressionally appropriated spending, and are insisting upon guardrails in this stopgap measure to stop him. They are also demanding a permanent extension of Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. If those subsidies end, it will increase costs for 20 million Americans.

Republicans have blasted the Democratic demands as a $1.5 trillion nonstarter.

“Their demands are designed to be unreasonable,” Republican Rep. Adrian Smith told reporters Friday.

President Donald Trump backed out of a meeting with Senate and House Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries last week. Francis Chung/POLITICO/AP

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, however, has shown some early indications that he might soften. He told CNN on Wednesday that he is open to bipartisan talks to address the looming expiration of the ACA credits. But “not as a hostage to keep the government open,” he said.

On Thursday, Thune told The Associated Press that he remains “a big believer that there’s always a way out,” but that Democrats have to “dial back” their demands.

“I think there are off-ramps here,” he said, “but I don’t think that the negotiating position, at least at the moment, that the Democrats are trying to exert here is going to get you there.”

With that interview, Thune cracked open the door to a potential second path to averting a government shutdown: Republicans could hash out a compromise with Senate Democrats. For example, Republicans could pursue limiting the ACA subsidy extension from forever — as Democrats have proposed — to two years, like Murkowski has floated.

Although by Sunday, the door seemed to be closing on such a deal. When NBC asked Thune if he would “compromise” with Democrats, he responded, “Compromise on what.”

“It’s something Democrat senators have said they want to see done,” Thune said of the ACA subsidy extension. “But something Leader Schumer doesn’t do when they had the majority.”

Jeffries, too, has signaled some openness to compromise on the ACA extension, specifically naming Murkowski as a likely negotiating partner. He told reporters Friday that some Republicans in both chambers agreed that ACA subsidies should be extended.

“That’s actually the bipartisan position, our position: protect the health care of the American people,” Jeffries said. “To me, that’s the exit strategy.”

But even in the unlikely event that Republicans and Democrats come to an agreement, there’s just one problem: the House of Representatives.

Thune’s negotiating ability is severely hamstrung because Speaker Mike Johnson canceled House votes until October, when a shutdown would have already begun.

If the Senate were to approve changes to even the punctuation in the continuing resolution, the measure would have to return to the House. And with the House out of session, they will not be able to vote on any adjustments until a shutdown is underway.

Of course, the recess is by design. Johnson sent Republicans home in hopes he could maximize leverage on the Senate. The House narrowly passed its continuing resolution two weeks ago, and it’s in Johnson’s political interest to make any changes to the bill as logistically painful as possible.

“The government would not shut down at the earliest until Oct. 1, so we’ll deal with it as appropriate,” Johnson told reporters last week.

“But if Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries decide they want to shut the government down, they’ve created the problem,” he continued. “We’ll have to resolve it one way or the other, but what they need to do is vote to keep the government open and not make these wild demands in the midst of a serious situation for the whole country.”

Senate Republicans and Democrats could still work out some side agreement that doesn’t make it into the actual bill text, but with pressure on Schumer from the Democratic base not to cave without concrete concessions reaching a fever pitch, such a deal appears increasingly unlikely.

After all, Democrats think they can win the messaging war if a shutdown does happen — especially if it takes effect while House Republicans aren’t even in Washington, D.C.

“Four days away from a government shutdown, and Republicans are on vacation — House Republicans, on vacation, canceled votes,” Jeffries told reporters Friday. “On the eve of a government shutdown, and Donald Trump is at a golf event?”