Democrats are on the verge of sparking a government shutdown, but are declining to share their exit plan to bring a politically perilous funding lapse to an end.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to lead Democrats in filibustering a clean government funding measure to temporarily fund government operations through Nov. 21 later on Tuesday evening. With government funding set to expire at midnight, Democrats appear to be embracing a shutdown despite no clear indication of what success might look like for their party during the funding lapse — nor are they offering a viable off-ramp to keep the government open.
“It’s right now impossible to say — there are about 20 different possible exit ramps — some of them good, some of them troubling,” Democratic Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Tuesday when asked if Democrats have an exit strategy.
Hours before the looming shutdown deadline, some Senate Republicans posited that their Democratic counterparts had no strategy to exit an indefinite funding lapse.
Democrats have refused to vote for a clean seven-week funding extension offered by Republicans and the impasse is almost certain to cause a lapse in funding with no agreed upon spending measure. Government funding legislation must secure 60 votes in the Senate, meaning Democrats partly control whether legislation passes in the upper chamber.
“I don’t think my Democratic friends have thought through how to get this thing back open,” Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told reporters. “And I don’t think they have thought through what I believe the OMB Director [Russ Vought] is going to do while the government is shut down.”
“I think they’re going to make it very painful,” Kennedy added.
The Louisiana Republican was likely referring to the White House budget office directing agencies to draft plans to permanently reduce their workforce in the event of a shutdown. The Trump administration could also move to slash government programs during the funding lapse, raising the stakes for Democratic lawmakers who tend to embrace big government.
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for [Democrats] and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out … cutting programs that they like,” President Donald Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
Some Democratic lawmakers have put the onus on Trump and GOP lawmakers to reopen the government despite Democrats’ objections to the GOP spending bill creating the imminent shutdown.
“I’ll quote President Trump as he’s said repeatedly, ‘It’s the responsibility of the president to keep the government open.’ Those are his words. I believe him,” Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner told the DCNF.
“They control every part of the government,” Warner added. “It’s the president’s job.”
Other Senate Democrats have argued that Republicans will cave first during a shutdown and agree to Democrats’ multiple policy demands to reopen the government. Democrats’ have sought $1.5 trillion in policy concessions — including reversing cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting — in exchange for their votes to keep the government open.
“At some point they’re going to come to the table realistically because they’ll be such mounting pressure,” Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters Monday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune quickly dismissed Democrats’ claim that they have leverage to force Republicans to swallow various policy concessions to avert a shutdown.
“It’s a trillion and a half dollars in new spending hung on, attached to a seven week continuing resolution to fund the government, to keep the doors open,” Thune told CNBC’s Joe Kernen on Tuesday. “Do they have any less leverage seven weeks from now?”
The majority leader also pointed out that Democrats’ chief ask to fund the government — an extension of COVID-era Affordable Care Act subsidies — is not slated to expire until the year’s end.
“This is a made up problem by the Democrats who desperately need to satisfy a political base that’s hostile to Donald Trump,” Thune said. “That’s what this is about. This is [about] Donald Trump. Nothing more, nothing less.”
A shutdown will likely inflict far-reaching consequences across the federal government, including the disruption of critical nutrition programs that millions of low-income Americans rely on and would force U.S. service members to work without pay.
Still, Democrats show no signs of blinking before the midnight shutdown deadline with no exit plan in sight.
“I’m concerned about people who won’t have access to government services, but I’m also concerned about a Republican Party that thinks it can take a trillion dollars out of our healthcare system and make every American family pay for that, and that the Republicans will just dance on a way,” Democratic Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s time for Democrats to stand up and say, ‘No more.’”
Andi Shae Napier and Caden Olson contributed to this report.
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