Congress's shutdown showdown intensifies ahead of deadline
Both sides of the aisle are digging in their heels despite dwindling time to strike a deal to avert a government shutdown.
House Republicans are aiming to unveil a mostly “clean,” short-term funding patch to keep the government open come Oct. 1 — but without major concessions on health care that Democrats in both chambers are demanding be part of a stopgap measure.
Pressed on the matter on Monday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters, “that’s a December policy issue, not a September funding issue.”
Democrats have been pushing for lawmakers to address a looming, end-of-year deadline to stave off the expiration of Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits, while also targeting Medicaid changes included in President Trump’s tax and spending bill that passed Congress earlier this month.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), meanwhile, poured cold water on the idea of a “clean” funding stopgap, also known as a continuing resolution (CR).
“Partisan legislation that continues the unprecedented Republican assault on healthcare is not a clean spending bill. It’s a dirty one,” he wrote on the social platform X.
The clash heightens the odds of a nasty funding showdown that could come to a head in the coming days.
Top House Republicans have been hopeful of passing a stopgap before the week’s end, as lawmakers are set to leave Washington in observance of the Rosh Hashanah holiday.
But Johnson told reporters on Monday afternoon that the forthcoming plan hadn’t yet been released, citing discussions around members’ safety in the wake of last week’s fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.
“We don’t have [text] yet because we’re trying to resolve this,” Johnson told reporters when pressed about a recent request from the White House for $58 million to boost security for government officials.
“It is kind of a late-breaking development, and that $58 million is for the executive and judicial branches,” Johnson said. “We have to protect our judges and those who serve in those two branches.”
Johnson said lawmakers are also “looking at an amount that would be appropriate for a continuing resolution in a short term to protect members in the [legislative] branch as well.”
An administration official also told The Hill on Monday that the request “supports security funding for the legislative branch but defers to Congress on how they want to do that.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters that many in his conference are supportive of increased security funding.
“It could be. We’ll see,” Thune said, noting that President Trump has requested it specifically. “We’ve got a lot of members who are interested in it.”
“The CR will have a few anomalies in it,” Thune added.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) noted that the money may be included, given the “level of anxiety” felt by members.
Republicans, though, are keeping the pressure on Democrats to agree to a continuation of the current levels of funding.
“It’s going to be by and large clean, which is why the Democrats ought to be willing to vote for it,” Thune said.
Despite that message, Democrats are showing precious few signs that they are willing to accept that proposal.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday laid into Trump and Republicans and attempted to flip the script on them, blaming the majority party for a potential shutdown, citing their perceived unwillingness to negotiate.
“Our position remains this: We want to keep the government open by engaging in bipartisan negotiations where we can address some of the grave harm Donald Trump has caused to our health care system and help Americans with the cost of living,” Schumer said in his floor remarks. “We haven’t seen that to date.”
The Democratic leader added that Johnson and Thune have “refused to have any conversations” about ACA subsidies and claimed the Speaker has politicized the funding process by “doing his own CR."
“Total, total partisan proposal,” Schumer labeled it. “If one side refuses to negotiate, they are the ones causing the shutdown.”
Thune has maintained that the subsidies are a nonstarter in a CR that lasts into November.
But intraparty rifts could complicate GOP leadership’s math if the lower chamber moves forward with plans to vote on the evolving legislation, which Republican critics note would keep funding mostly at levels hashed out under the Biden administration.
Some hard-line conservatives have voiced concerns in recent months about a short-term CR setting up the runway for an end-of-year omnibus funding package.
At the same time, some conservatives have also pressed for another full-year CR keeping funding levels mostly the same in a bid to curb spending.
In a lengthy post on X on Monday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she “can’t wait to see how voting for the CR becomes a Trump loyalty test.”
“When in all actual reality, it’s a disloyalty to him by passing a Biden policy laden omnibus,” she wrote. “Instead of passing a Republican appropriations bill with Trump policies and our spending priorities, in order to make his policies permanent.”
“By continuing to pass CR’s, those that demand it and support it, are making Trump a temporary president with temporary policies,” she wrote.
However, the strategy for a “clean” stopgap has already drawn backing from Trump, which could help tilt the scales in leadership’s favor.
In a post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump pinned blame for a potential shutdown on Democrats, while pressing for GOP unity against what he called “Radical Left Democrat demands.”
“Democrats want the Government to shut down. Republicans want the Government to OPEN,” he wrote.
But House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said later Monday that the proposed November funding is a red line “for some of our members.”
Asked whether he saw Trump’s post as instructions to support whatever plan leadership unveils, Harris said, “I get instructions from my 750,000 people in my district.”
Pressed if he supports the plan that leadership is eyeing, he said: “I don’t know, I haven’t seen it.”