By:Ashley Murray, Jennifer Shutt and Shauneen Miranda, States Newsroom
U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans remained at a stalemate Wednesday as government offices closed and hundreds of thousands of federal workers faced furloughs on the first day of a government shutdown that showed no sign of ending.
Proposals from each side of the aisle to fund and reopen the government failed again during morning Senate votes, mirroring the same vote breakdowns as Tuesday evening, when lawmakers could not reach a deal hours before the government ran out of money.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected up to 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed, leading to a $400 million per day impact on the economy.
Locked in their positions, Republicans failed to pick up enough Democrats to reach the 60 votes needed to advance their plan to fund the government until Nov. 21.
Senators will break Thursday to observe Yom Kippur but will return Friday to again vote on the funding proposals.
Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, along with independent Angus King of Maine, again joined Republicans in the 55-45 vote for the House-passed stopgap spending bill. GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted no.
Democrats also failed to find support to move forward their bill to fund the government through Oct. 31, roll back GOP cuts on Medicaid and permanently extend subsidies that tie the cost of Affordable Care Act health insurance premiums to an enrollee’s income level.
The Democrats failed to advance their plan in a party-line 47-53 vote. King, who caucuses with Democrats, voted in favor.
Shutdown tied to health care tax credits
Senate and House Democrats say they will not support a GOP path to reopen the government unless Republicans agree to negotiate on rising health care costs.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a press conference that Democrats are “ready to sit down with anyone at any time and at any place in order now to reopen the government, to enact a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people and to address the devastating Republican health care crisis that has caused extraordinary harm on people all across the country.”
The New York Democrat pointed to harms in “rural America, working class America, urban America, small-town America, the heartland of America and Black and brown communities throughout America.”
Democratic leaders blitzed Capitol Hill with their message on health care, holding press conferences and attending an evening rally Tuesday on the lawn outside the U.S. House.
They pointed to new data published this week showing annual insurance premiums could double on average in 2026 if the subsidies expire at year’s end, according to an analysis from the nonprofit health policy research organization KFF.
Open enrollment for next year’s ACA health insurance plans opens Nov. 1 in most states, and Oct. 15 in Idaho.
Uptake of ACA health insurance plans has more than doubled to over 24 million, up from 11 million, since the introduction of the subsidies in 2021, according to KFF.
During their own budget reconciliation deal in 2022, Democrats extended the insurance premium tax credits until the end of 2025. The majority of ACA enrollees currently rely on the credits.
Democrats also want assurances that the White House and Senate Republicans will not cancel any more funds that have already been approved by Congress, as was the case this year when the administration and GOP lawmakers stripped funding for medical research, foreign aid and public broadcasting, among other areas.
‘This can all end today’
GOP leaders in the House and Senate continued to blame Senate Democrats for the government shutdown at the expense of furloughed federal workers and Americans who rely on their services.
At a Wednesday morning press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson said “troops and border patrol agents will have to go to work, but they’ll be working without pay.”
Johnson also claimed at the press conference that veterans benefits would stop. The claim is false, as Veterans Administration medical care will continue uninterrupted and vets will also continue to receive benefits, including compensation, pension, education and housing.
“As we speak here this morning, there are hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are getting their furlough notices. Nearly half of our civilian workforce is being sent home — these are hard-working Americans who work for our federal government,” the Louisiana Republican said, flanked by fellow GOP leaders on the Upper West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol overlooking the National Mall.
Johnson decided in late September the House will be out until Oct. 6, canceling this week’s votes.
The speaker said he will bring House members back next week, even if the government is still shut down.
“They would be here this week, except that we did our work — we passed the bill almost two weeks ago out of the House, sent it to the Senate,” Johnson said. “The ball is literally in (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer’s court, so he determines that.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said “this can all end today” and “needs to end today.”
The South Dakota Republican said the funding lapse can cease when Senate Democrats vote for the GOP’s “clean” short-term funding bill.
“We will continue to work together with our House counterparts, with the president of the United States, to get this government open again on behalf of the American people,” Thune said.
Bipartisan deal and Trump
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said later in the day that a bipartisan group huddled on the floor during votes to talk about a possible path forward on “health care fixes” and ensuring that if a bipartisan deal is brokered, the Trump administration will stick to it.
Republican senators, he said, could give Democrats assurances they won’t vote for any more rescissions requests from the White House, which ask Congress to cancel already approved government spending. But other issues, like laying off federal workers by the hundreds or thousands, have to be a promise from the president.
“If I find a deal, should Congress have to follow it? Yes. Should the president have to follow it? Yes. Well, what if the president won’t follow it? Oh, yeah, you got a problem,” Kaine said. “So you know, rescission, impoundment, those are Senate words. But a deal is a deal — people get that.”
Kaine also emphasized that it’s not a “clean” stopgap funding bill if the Trump administration unilaterally cancels some of the spending.
“In the past, we voted for clean (continuing resolutions), but the president has shown that he’ll take the money back,” Kaine said, referring to the technical name for a short-term funding bill. “I mean, just in Virginia, canceling $400 million to our public health, $40 million economic projects just pulled off the table, firing more Virginians than any president.
“So we just want you to agree, if we do a deal, then you’ll honor the deal,” Kaine said. “It’s not that much to ask.”
‘People are suffering’
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he doesn’t expect the shutdown will have long-term ramifications for senators’ ability to negotiate bipartisan deals — a necessity in the upper chamber, which has a 60-vote threshold to advance legislation.
“It’s all transactional,” Tillis said. “I think there’s going to be opportunities for some bipartisan work, but none of that happens, you can’t even really consider it when you’re in a shutdown posture.”
Cortez Masto, who voted to advance Republicans’ seven-week stopgap bill, said the GOP “created this crisis” on health care and “need to address it.”
“They have no moral standing — no moral standing —- to say that this is all on the Democrats. They are in control. They’ve created this crisis,” Cortez Masto said. “People are suffering and they need to come to the table.”
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who was sworn in for the first time during the last shutdown, said he worries about longer-term effects.
“My concern is it’s going to poison the well on negotiations going forward on a lot of things,” Hawley said. “I can’t speak for anybody but myself, but I would just say that these tactics are very destructive. And it’s destructive, not just for relationships, but for real people.”
