{"id":13471,"date":"2025-09-19T17:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/shutdown-standoff-hits-fever-pitch\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T17:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:34:13","slug":"shutdown-standoff-hits-fever-pitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/shutdown-standoff-hits-fever-pitch\/","title":{"rendered":"Shutdown standoff hits fever pitch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The shutdown showdown is officially on.<\/p>\n

The Senate rejected dueling short-term government funding proposals Friday afternoon, leaving no clear off-ramp before the fiscal year ends and agencies shut down at midnight Sept. 30.<\/p>\n

Despite the looming cliff, neither side appears ready to blink, and lawmakers are set to spend at least the next nine days back home. House Republicans are not set to return until after a shutdown is already underway, and the Senate is unlikely to vote again until less than 48 hours before the deadline.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> warned that the only live option on the table for Democrats is to approve the House-passed bill favored by Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooks to me like it’s this or a shutdown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Republicans rejected a Democratic counterproposal<\/a> in an 47-45 vote on Friday that would link government funding through Oct. 31 with health care policies and limits on President Donald Trump\u2019s ability to withhold money Congress has approved.<\/p>\n

Democrats plan to use the vote to attack Republicans for opposing the restoration of Medicaid cuts made in their \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d they passed in July as well as the extension of health insurance subsidies that expire later this year. This, they believe, will galvanize public opinion and pressure President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers to cave.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Republican colleagues seem to think Americans are happy with the direction of this country,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> said Friday. \u201cThey\u2019re voting like they think the status quo is good enough, even though they\u2019ve heard from so many of their constituents the fear of hospitals closing, of health care being diminished, of premiums going way up, hundreds of dollars each month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats then rejected the GOP stopgap<\/a> in an 48-44 vote after it passed the House<\/a> earlier Friday morning. Only one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted for the bill \u2014 well short of the 10 who helped avert the last shutdown standoff by supporting a GOP-written bill in March. Two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky, also voted against it.<\/p>\n

Democrats had telegraphed in advance of Friday\u2019s vote that they would oppose the GOP bill because Republicans had not responded to entreaties from Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> to hold a bipartisan summit meeting to discuss government funding.<\/p>\n

But Republicans appear to be perfectly comfortable blaming Democrats \u2014 and particularly Schumer \u2014 for a funding lapse, as the Democratic leader faces pressure on his side of the aisle to put up a fight against Trump and congressional Republicans after caving in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy guess is Chuck Schumer is too afraid of his own shadow and will vote to shut the government down on the 30th,\u201d Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) told reporters. \u201cSo whatever we do between here and there, you know, it’ll probably be a little bit fluid. But at the end of the day, he’s going to have a decision to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

House members were advised Friday that planned session days for Sept. 29 and 30 were cancelled, meaning the House would not be able to act quickly even if a compromise were reached in the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Senate Democrats insist on a Schumer Shutdown of the federal government, Members should be prepared to return to DC,\u201d a Republican leadership advisory said.<\/p>\n

Thune said this week that he was willing to meet with Schumer. But Democrats believe the onus is on the South Dakota Republican as majority leader to kick-start the negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was and still is a path to preventing a shutdown, and it starts with the Republican leadership finally sitting down with our Democratic leadership,\u201d said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the Senate\u2019s top Democratic appropriator. \u201cYou want Democratic votes on a funding bill? A good place to start is actually trying to win those votes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump suggested last week that congressional Republicans shouldn\u2019t \u201ceven bother dealing\u201d with<\/a> Democrats, despite the fact that at least some senators in the minority party will need to support any passable funding bill due to the Senate\u2019s 60-vote filibuster threshold.<\/p>\n

Republican lawmakers have signaled they are willing to negotiate on extending the enhanced health insurance subsidies, which were passed as part of former President Joe Biden\u2019s American Rescue Plan and expire on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n

But GOP leaders have bristled at Democrats\u2019 insistence that they need to cut a deal now, on a weeks-long stopgap, when the subsidies aren\u2019t set to expire for months. Democrats, however, argue an extension can\u2019t wait when Americans will need to make coverage decisions for next year before then.<\/p>\n

Also fueling Democrats\u2019 district is a fear that even if a bipartisan deal can be struck, that Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought will ignore congressional spending decisions and hold back spending they disagree with<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy pass a budget if Russell Vought can unilaterally rescind it?\u201d Schumer asked on the floor.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The shutdown showdown is officially on. The Senate rejected dueling short-term government funding proposals Friday afternoon, leaving no clear off-ramp before the fiscal year ends and agencies shut down at midnight Sept. 30. Despite the looming cliff, neither side appears ready to blink, and lawmakers are set to spend at least the next nine days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}