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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSenators returned to Washington, D.C., on Monday and again defeated two proposals to end the government shutdown on its sixth day.
The shutdown has sidelined 750,000 federal workers and forced many others to work without pay since funding laws expired early Wednesday. It has almost completely shuttered agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Education Department, though national security and law enforcement functions are continuing.
President Donald Trump told reporters he is open to an agreement with Democrats to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies to open the government “if we made the right deal,” but did not offer specifics in Oval Office remarks Monday afternoon.
“We have a negotiation going on right now with Democrats that could lead to very good things,” he said.
Trump has also said the shutdown provides an “unprecedented opportunity” to scale back federal government operations he says don’t align with his priorities, including withholding funding for green energy projects in multiple states with Democratic senators and for transportation projects in Chicago and New York.
“It’s all because of the Democrats,” Trump said Sunday evening. “The Democrats are causing the loss of a lot of jobs with their—it’s a shutdown. It’s their shutdown, not our shutdown.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday that Trump has not been directly lobbying Democratic senators, though he is “being kept very well apprised” by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana).
“His position is very clear. There’s nothing to negotiate, just reopen the government and then we can talk about all the important issues facing our country,” she said.
Thune told reporters Monday that Democrats “want a guaranteed result that we can’t guarantee them” on extending the ACA subsidies before they’ll vote to open the government. “There may be a path forward” for Republicans to support an extension, he said, but “I think a lot of it would come down to what the White House lands on that, but certainly not without reforms.”
Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill take the same positions they have since the funding laws expired, hoping that public sentiment against the shutdown will begin to wear the other side down.
Democrats insist they cannot vote to reopen the federal government without an agreement to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies put in place during covid that expire at the end of the year—a proposal that has already faced fierce resistance from fiscal conservatives in both chambers.
Democrats have also said they need assurance that any spending laws would be implemented as written. Trump and White House budget director Russell Vought have attempted to block funding written into law, which the Government Accountability Office, an independent arm of Congress, has ruled is illegal.
“We’ve been trying for months and months to sit down with them and have a serious conversation addressing America’s health care needs. And they’ve refused and refused and refused,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Republican leaders have indicated they’re open to extending the ACA subsidies with reforms, but they say they will not negotiate while the government is closed. Thune said Friday that Republicans could support an extension of the ACA subsidies only with changes, which he argued would be too complicated to do before the open enrollment period begins Nov. 1, as Democrats have suggested.
“These things that they want to do and we’re talking about, we’re happy to have a conversation about,” Thune said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “But that can’t happen with the government shut down, so it’s open up the government or else.”
Republicans have proposed a funding extension that would fund the government through Nov. 21, while Democrats have proposed an extension through Oct. 31 with additional Democratic priorities attached, including the ACA subsidies. Both plans have repeatedly failed to get the necessary 60 votes to pass the upper chamber without a filibuster—including Monday’s vote—and the Senate is expected to continue daily votes on the proposals during the shutdown.
Johnson has canceled votes last week and this week to pressure Democrats to accept the GOP proposal without changes. The House, which already passed the GOP plan, is scheduled to return Oct. 14.
“The House will come back into session and do its work as soon as Chuck Schumer allows us to reopen the government. That’s plain and simple,” Johnson said Friday.
The shutdown has already led to a modest uptick in the number of sick calls from air traffic controllers, who are continuing to work but aren’t being paid, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said in an appearance at Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday. Duffy said that there has been minimal impact on national airspace operations and that it remains safe for Americans to fly.
But communities that depend on the Essential Air Service program may lose access to those flights because funding will run out Sunday, Duffy warned. The EAS provides government subsidies to airlines to operate in communities that might otherwise not have access to air service. The largest user of the EAS program is Alaska.
With no negotiations between Senate leaders, individual senators have begun preliminary talks to find a solution that might break the logjam.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota), who has been part of those conversations, said Friday that he has been urging Democrats on the Appropriations Committee to reopen the government so they can complete full-year funding bills. Five Democrats who backed a Republican funding bill in March but voted against the GOP bill last week are on the committee, and they are seen as crucial swing votes.
One of them, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire), made calls over the weekend to try to make progress on the ACA subsidies, according to a person familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were private.
“We’re trying. We’re continuing to try,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota), who is also involved in the nascent conversations, told reporters Friday. “The most important piece: End the shutdown and lots of things can fall into place. And regular order is a huge part of it. We can get these appropriation bills across the finish line. And those are bipartisan.”
Democrats say they still need a negotiation on health care to win their votes.
“There’s a lot of things that, of course, we would want to see change. But we are showing that we’re focusing in on something that we think we can deliver for the American people,” said Sen. Andy Kim (D-New Jersey.) “Whereas the Republicans, they don’t want to give up anything. We want adults in the room that can recognize that a deal needs to be made.”
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MAGA shutdown, all because they want peole to lie dying at emergency room doors.
Both sides are to blame as both sides are acting like children. Neither wants to have a meaningful discussion about the affect of the shutdown and the costs on the Country. Each side wants to show they are a baddest in the name of politics. The fact that mid-terms are next year which adds to the complexity of the showdown. Our “representatives” are still getting their paychecks, not that most of them need the money, while leaving hundreds of thousands who need the money without their checks and in many cases are still required to showup for work. Not sure how many people are willing to work very long on a promise of a paycheck, some day. While republlicans, yes those in Indiana, are complaining about the high cost of healthcare, they cut the insurance from millions effectively diverting the costs to the very entities they are complaining about charging too much.