United States Inches Closer To Federal Government Shutdown

The U.S. government inched one step closer to a shutdown last week after the U.S. Senate failed to approve a U.S. House-passed continuing resolution (CR) to fund federal departments and agencies for seven weeks, through mid-November. Democrats, who want to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance subsidies as part of the CR, came together in near unison to defeat the measure on a 44-48 vote. Only Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) voting for the Republican-drafted proposal, which was approved by the House earlier on Friday through a 217-212 vote.

Democrats attempted to pass their own version of CR that contained their preferred health provisions, but Senate Republicans blocked that proposal. As The Hill reported, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) maintained he would only support a clean extension, free of added ACA subsidies. “I made it very clear that I wanted the Senate to return to regular order consideration of appropriations bills. I was not and am not interested in funding government through last-minute backroom deals,” Sen. Thune said.

After the Senate vote, President Donald Trump expressed pessimism about the possibility that the two parties could reach an agreement that can garner 60 votes in the Senate before the government shuts down on Oct. 1. (Republicans hold 53 seats in the upper chamber of Congress, meaning that at least seven Democrats would need to support a motion to break a filibuster on the continuing resolution.) “We’ll continue to talk to the Democrats, but I think you could very well end up with a closed country for a period of time,” the president said.