Senate Rejects Both Republican and Democratic Plans To Prevent Government Shutdown

The Senate dealt a double blow to government funding on Friday, rejecting both Republican and Democratic proposals to prevent a D.C. shutdown — pushing the federal government closer to the brink of closure later this month.The Republican plan, which squeaked through the GOP-controlled House 217-212 earlier Friday, died in the Senate with a 44-48 vote — falling well short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster. Only one Democrat, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, crossed party lines to support it, while Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska defected. The Democratic proposal did not fare much better, failing 47-45 in a mostly party-line vote with seven Republicans absent.With both proposals dead, Congress has no clear route to avert a government shutdown set to begin on October 1. The partisan stalemate grows more problematic as lawmakers prepare to break for Rosh Hashanah observance next week.Senate Democrats, led by minority leader Chuck Schumer of New York, followed through on promises to torpedo the House Republican bill — a measure that would have maintained current spending levels through November 21,” according to a report from NBC News. After being excluded from negotiations, Democrats countered with their own funding plan.The Democratic proposal would have kept the government running through October 31 while bundling in several policy priorities: permanently extending expiring Obamacare subsidies and reversing Medicaid cuts from the Trump era.Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, rallied a divided Republican conference earlier in the day to pass a seven-week government funding bill through November 21 by a 217-212 vote. The vote highlights the speaker’s challenge managing a razor-thin Republican majority, where he could only afford to lose two votes. Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Victoria Spartz of Indiana, both Republicans, opposed the bill, while Congressman Jared Golden, a Democrat of Maine, crossed party lines to support it.Despite being more than a week from the deadline, Friday’s votes in both chambers significantly raises the risk of a potential shutdown, as both GOP and Democratic leaders are making demands of the other side to back off from their positions.On Thursday, the House majority leader, Steve Scalise, had floated the idea of GOP leaders sending lawmakers home through October 1 after the bill’s passage, according to a report from CNN. The move would force the hand of senators to either accept the House’s measure or allow funding to lapse.The Senate majority leader, John Thune, told CNN he’ll bring the GOP plan back for another vote “probably close” to the September 30 deadline, essentially forcing a decision in either direction.Republicans argue their November 20 funding bill is a “clean” continuing resolution, adding only $88 million for congressional and executive/judicial security plus a D.C. funding fix that frees up $1 billion of the city’s own money from an earlier legislative error.The Democratic bill includes costly health care provisions, including the extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at year’s end.

Senate Rejects Both Republican and Democratic Plans To Prevent Government Shutdown

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