The Senate rejected dueling funding bills from Democrats and Republicans on Friday afternoon, pushing Congress to the brink of a shutdown with no deal in sight.
Senate Republicans stuck together to defeat the Democratic funding patch, which includes hundreds of billions of dollars for health care programs and would have restored or protected some energy and climate funding. The vote was 47-45, with 60 affirmative votes needed for passage.
Then, Senate Democrats voted to block the Republicans’ “clean” seven-week funding stopgap, which had passed out of the House about two hours earlier on a 217-212 vote, mostly along party lines. The Senate vote on the GOP plan was 44-48.
The lack of consensus on how to keep agencies running past the Sept. 30 funding deadline bodes poorly for Congress’ ability to avoid a government shutdown. Lawmakers have less than two weeks to settle on a deal, and neither side appears willing to budge.
Further, Congress has a scheduled recess next week, and House leaders on Friday canceled two days of the session before the end of the month to try to force Democrats to accept their CR.
Neither Republican nor Democratic leaders have laid out next steps.
“We will not rubber stamp Republicans’ continuing resolution that does nothing to fix the health care crisis that they’ve created,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
On the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said, “Democrats are yielding to the desires of their rabidly leftist base and are attempting to hold government funding hostage to a long list of partisan demands.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and most Senate Democrats had been signaling that they would not support the Republican proposal because it does not include hundreds of billions of dollars for health care programs and other Democratic priorities.
Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) was the only House Democrat to support the GOP bill, H.R. 5371, Friday morning.
Democratic leaders offered an alternative CR this week, S. 2882, that would extend soon-to-expire health care subsidies, restore some funding that Republicans and the Trump administration have withheld or rescinded, and impose guardrails on the White House’s funding moves. It also aimed to protect some energy and climate funding.
But for Republicans, all of those provisions were nonstarters. On social media Friday morning, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said, “Democrats just can’t let go of the unpopular Green New Scam — even if it means shutting down the government over it.”
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) drew a contrast between Democratic and Republican demands. He said on the Senate floor that Democrats’ CR would restore funding for international clean energy financing that Republicans repealed over the summer as part of a rescissions package.
“Republicans want to keep the government open, pay our troops here at home,” Barrasso said. “Democrats would rather fund climate projects overseas and are willing to shut down the government if we’re not willing to do that.”
