WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats have voted down a Republican bill to keep funding the government, putting it on a near certain path to a shutdown after midnight Wednesday for the first time in nearly seven years. The Senate rejected the legislation as Democrats are making good on their threat to close the government if President Donald […]
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Government headed to a shutdown after last-ditch vote fails in Senate
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats have voted down a Republican bill to keep funding the government, putting it on a near certain path to a shutdown after midnight Wednesday for the first time in nearly seven years.
The Senate rejected the legislation as Democrats are making good on their threat to close the government if President Donald Trump and Republicans won’t accede to their demands. The 55-45 vote on a bill to extend federal funding for seven weeks fell short of the 60 needed to end a filibuster and pass the legislation.
The failure of Congress to keep the government open means that hundreds of thousands of federal workers could be furloughed or laid off. After the vote, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memo saying “affected agencies should now execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.”
In a message to Democrats, Trump said Tuesday that a shutdown could include “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”
Trump and his fellow Republicans said they won’t entertain any changes to the legislation, arguing that it’s a stripped-down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said “we can reopen it tomorrow” if enough Democrats break party lines.
The last shutdown was in Trump’s first term, from December 2018 to January 2019, when he demanded that Congress give him money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. Trump retreated after 35 days — the longest shutdown ever — amid intensifying airport delays and missed paydays for federal workers.
Democrats take a stand against Trump, with exceptions
While partisan stalemates over government spending are a frequent occurrence in Washington, the current impasse comes as Democrats see a rare opportunity to use their leverage to achieve policy goals and as their base voters are spoiling for a fight with Trump. Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate needed at least eight votes from Democrats after Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky opposed the bill.
Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine voted with Republicans to keep the government open — giving Republicans hope that there might be five more who will eventually come around and help end a shutdown.
Shutdown preparations begin
The stakes are huge for federal workers across the country as the White House told agencies last week that they should consider “a reduction in force” for many federal programs if the government shuts down. That means that workers who are not deemed essential could be fired instead of just furloughed.
Either way, most would not get paid. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in a letter to Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst on Tuesday that around 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day once a shutdown begins.
Federal agencies were already preparing. On the home page of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a large pop up ad reads, “The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people.”