Congress barrels toward shutdown after stopgap bills rejected

WASHINGTON — A partial government shutdown became seemingly unavoidable Tuesday evening after the Senate once again voted against the House-passed stopgap funding extension.

With no alternative in sight and no serious negotiations between the parties pending, appropriations will lapse starting at midnight. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be forced off the job Wednesday after winding down their activities, and more than that may have to work without pay until the shutdown ends.

Needing 60 votes to advance, Democrats mostly stuck together to vote down Republicans’ seven-week stopgap bill, 55-45.

There were new signs of cracks in Democrats’ unity, however. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, joined Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who’s consistently backed the GOP funding patch.

It looked for awhile like New Hampshire Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan might switch sides as well. But after huddling on the floor with Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington, the Appropriations panel ranking member, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the two New Hampshire Democrats voted “no.”

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, was the sole Republican to vote against the GOP bill, after leadership held the vote open to accommodate his return from a speaking engagement.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, had voted against the bill when the Senate first took it up Sept. 19, but flipped her vote to “yes” with the shutdown deadline approaching.

‘The ball is in their court’

The Senate earlier Tuesday voted along party lines against the Democrats’ preferred extension bill, which is just four weeks but includes over $1 trillion in 10-year spending on health care coverage and would bar the Trump administration from canceling funds Congress previously enacted.

“We stand ready to work with Republicans to find a bipartisan compromise,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “The ball is in their court.”

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Democrats had a “binary choice” of accepting the bill the House passed two weeks ago or a government shutdown.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing here to negotiate,” Thune said. “This is a routine funding resolution to keep the government open so that we can continue our appropriations work and fund the government the old-fashioned way.”

Democrats want to attach an extension of expanded health insurance tax credits that expire Dec. 31 to the legislation, which Republicans are refusing. While Thune said he would be happy to talk to Democrats about the issue, he said that conversation would have to be separate from government spending.

That’s not an acceptable answer to Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who asked President Donald Trump to agree to extend the tax credits that lower premium payments for individuals who buy insurance on government-run exchanges.

While there’s at least some bipartisan appetite for that extension, many conservatives are not on board.

And in the meantime, millions of individuals with exchange plans are about to start receiving notices of steep premium increases for next year, averaging about 114% according to a new analysis by KFF, a health policy research organization.

Murray said addressing health care can’t wait as Americans will receive letters informing them of new rates next month.

“Republican leadership is pretending they want to talk about health care later. The reality Republicans won’t talk about is that higher premiums are being announced right now,” Murray said in a floor speech Tuesday.

Democrats also are pushing for reversing Medicaid cuts under Trump’s reconciliation bill and to insert guardrails against additional administration efforts to freeze or cancel prior appropriations.

These are nonstarters with Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House. Monday’s White House meeting between Trump and congressional leaders in both parties did not lead to a breakthrough.

Trump blamed Democrats and said that “a lot of good can come from shutdowns.”

Furloughs, layoffs

The Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that federal agencies would lose $400 million each day during a shutdown, with about 750,000 federal workers being placed on furlough. These workers would not be paid during the shutdown but would receive back pay after the shutdown ends under a 2019 law.

Thousands of the furloughed workers could receive layoff notices under Office of Management and Budget guidance to agencies, though federal employee unions filed suit Tuesday to try to stop that. The White House budget office also told agencies to consider ending entire programs that lose funding in a shutdown.

“We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want,” Trump said. “They would be Democrat things.”

Murray said during her floor speech that the administration would use the shutdown as a pretext to fire more federal workers.

“The president is thrilled to be shutting things down and sowing division, not working to solve the problem,” Murray said.

In a statement explaining her vote, Cortez Masto said she was swayed by the potential damage Trump and his administration could do during a shutdown.

“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.

Numerous other programs, meanwhile, may be collateral damage in the shutdown fight. The stopgap bills would extend various authorizations that are set to lapse, from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families to the National Flood Insurance Program.

GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, from flood-prone Louisiana, highlighted the potential flood insurance lapse in a floor speech Tuesday.

Cassidy said during a shutdown, home buyers will be unable to use federally backed loans to close on homes that require flood insurance. Nor will those with policies be able to extend them, he said. “The American people deserve accountability, they expect Congress to put their needs before partisan politics,” he said.

Senators aren’t going home despite the stalemate, as GOP leaders plan to keep the chamber in session and voting except for during the day Thursday, in observance of Yom Kippur.

“Democrats may have chosen to shut down the government tonight, but we can reopen it tomorrow,” Thune said after Tuesday night’s votes. “All it takes is a handful of Democrats to join Republicans to pass the clean, nonpartisan funding bill that is in front of us.”

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(David Lerman and Paul M. Krawzak contributed to this report.)

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