US government on brink of first shutdown in almost 7 years

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

WASHINGTON (AP) — A partisan standoff is threatening to trigger the first U.S. government shutdown in almost seven years, with Democrats and Republicans in Congress unable to find agreement even as thousands of federal workers stand to be furloughed or laid off.

The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday if the Senate does not pass a House measure that would extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills. Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for it unless Republicans include their demands, while President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans urge them to agree to a stripped-down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial.

It’s unclear if either side will blink before the deadline.

Vice President JD Vance, who was also in the meeting, said afterward, “I think we’re headed into a shutdown, because the Democrats won’t do the right thing.”

While partisan stalemates over government spending are a frequent occurrence in Washington, the current impasse comes as Democrats believe they have a rare opportunity to use their leverage to achieve their policy goals and as their base voters are spoiling for a fight with Trump. Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate will likely need at least eight votes from Democrats to end a filibuster and pass the bill with 60 votes, since Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is expected to vote against it.

No agreement at the White House

Trump had shown little interest in entertaining Democrats’ demands, even as he agreed to hold a sit-down meeting Monday with Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

As he headed into the meeting, Trump made it clear he had no intention to negotiate on Democrats’ current terms.

“Their ideas are not very good ones,” Trump said.

It was Trump’s first meeting with all four leaders in Congress since retaking the White House for his second term, and he did more listening than talking, Jeffries told House Democrats at the Capitol afterward, according to a lawmaker who attended the private caucus meeting and insisted on anonymity to discuss it.

Schumer said after the closed-door meeting that they had “had candid, frank discussions” with Trump about health care. Vance also said Trump found several points of agreement on policy ideas.

Thune has pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later. Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, but they want to place new limits on them.

“We’re willing to sit down and work with them on some of the issues they want to talk about,” Thune told reporters at the White House, adding, “But as of right now, this is a hijacking of the American people, and it’s the American people who are going to pay the price.”

A crucial, and unusual, vote for Democrats

Democrats are in an uncomfortable position for a party that has long denounced shutdowns as pointless and destructive, and it’s unclear how or when it would end. But party activists and voters have argued that Democrats need to do something to stand up to Trump.

Shutdown preparations begin

Federal agencies were sending out contingency plans if funding lapses, including details on what offices would stay open and which employees would be furloughed. In its instructions to agencies, the White House has suggested that a shutdown could lead to broad layoffs across the government.

Trump’s budget director, Russ Vought, told reporters at the White House that a shutdown would be managed “appropriately, but it is something that can all be avoided” if Senate Democrats accepted the House-passed bill.

Before joining the administration, Vought had advised hard-line conservatives in Congress to use the prospect of a shutdown to negotiate for policy concessions. But on Monday, he berated Democrats for engaging in a similar ploy.

“This is hostage-taking,” he said. “It is not something that we are going to accept.”