Government shutdown imminent as Republican budget stopgap falters

WASHINGTON (CN) — The U.S. is headed for a government shutdown as the Senate on Tuesday failed to pass a crucial stopgap budget that appears unlikely to pass amid furious Democratic opposition.

The Republican-led measure, known as a continuing resolution, failed 55-45 in the upper chamber minutes after lawmakers put down a Democratic counter proposal. And the move comes hours after House Democrats slammed their Republican colleagues for skipping town in what they said was a gambit to stifle bipartisan negotiations.

Congressional Democrats have for weeks rejected a Republican-led plan to fund the government on a short-term basis through mid-November, arguing that the GOP majority had cut them out of the process. Still, the proposed continuing resolution passed the House earlier this month, and now Senate leadership is poised to bring the measure to a vote.

It was always unlikely that the Republican spending plan would be able to capture the Democratic votes it needs to get across the finish line.

But the Senate was short on options. Even if lawmakers were to renegotiate a bipartisan stopgap, it would need to clear a vote in the House — and House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to call the lower chamber back into session until next week. The fiscal year, meanwhile, is set to elapse at midnight Wednesday.

With a shutdown looming large, the political blame game has begun in earnest. House Democrats, furious with their GOP colleagues, accused them on Tuesday of taking vacation while government funding dried up.

“Shame on them for being on vacation all across the country and all across the world on the eve of a government shutdown,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in remarks on the Capitol steps Tuesday morning. “They’re on vacation because they’d rather shut the government down than protect the health care of the American people.”

Jeffries, joined by dozens of other House Democrats, reiterated the party’s demand that any short-term funding deal include extensions to health care subsidies inked under the Affordable Care Act and slated to expire at the end of the year. The top House Democrat, alongside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, met with President Donald Trump on Monday to make their case but left the meeting unsatisfied.

Republicans including Trump have accused Democrats of holding the government “hostage” in exchange for policy concessions and framed their efforts to secure ACA subsidy extensions as handing health care coverage to what they termed as illegal immigrants— an apparent reference to claims of rampant fraud in the U.S. health care system.

Following Monday’s meeting, Trump posted an AI-altered video to social media which combined real footage of Jeffries and Schumer with artificially generated audio. The clip spoofed Schumer’s voice calling himself and Democrats “woke pieces of shit” and saying that they were seeking health care for people who “don’t even speak English.”

Jeffries was depicted in a sombrero and a handlebar mustache.

The House minority leader fired back at the president on Tuesday.

“Mr. President, the next time you have something to say about me, don’t cop out through a racist and fake AI video,” he said. “When I’m back at the Oval Office, say it to my face.”

At a separate news conference hosted by a group of House Democratic voting caucuses, rank-and-file lawmakers also excoriated Republicans for skipping town ahead of the evening’s fiscal deadline.

“Republicans, you have a responsibility to show up for your people,” said Vermont Representative Becca Balint, co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus. “The fact that you’re not here tells us everything we need to know about you. You are not serious people, you are not committed people, you are not people dedicated to the people who sent you here.”

Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers accused Democrats of refusing to budge on their opposition of a so-called “clean” continuing resolution that would simply fund federal programs while Congress debates full-year spending bills.

“Instead of supporting a clean, short-term, nonpartisan funding bill, Democrats would rather SHUT DOWN the government over a radical list of demands that includes FREE TAXPAYER-FUNDED BENEFITS for illegal aliens,” House Speaker Johnson wrote in a post on X.

Following Monday’s Oval Office meeting, Vice President JD Vance told reporters at the White House that the government was headed for a shutdown because Democrats “won’t do the right thing.” And Senate Majority Leader John Thune again accused Democrats of “hostage taking.”

And following Tuesday’s vote, the White House again made clear who it thought was to blame for the impending shutdown. “Democrat shutdown,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt proclaimed on X.

Still, a handful of Democratic lawmakers broke with their party to try and salvage the Republican continuing resolution. Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman voted for the measure. Maine Senator Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, also cast his vote in favor.

In a statement, Cortez Masto said that she could not vote to support a government shutdown which she said would hurt families in her state.

“We need a bipartisan solution to address this impending health care crisis, but we should not be swapping the pain of one group of Americans for another," she said.

The last government shutdown took place during Trump’s first term in office and lasted a little over one month, beginning in December 2018 and ending in January of 2019. It cost the government as much as $5 billion and put nearly 400,000 federal employees on temporary furlough.

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