Shutdown fight. The federal government runs out of money in three weeks. And Senate Republican leaders are laying the groundwork for a re-run of the March funding fight: Jam Democrats with a stopgap measure they’ll certainly hate and hope they blink.
Except this time, Democrats insist they won’t fall for it.
Thune seemed to shut the door Tuesday to extending enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits as part of any funding measure to avert an Oct. 1 shutdown. This is a growing political problem for moderate Republicans, as more than four million Americans could lose coverage without the subsidies. Rank-and-file Democrats say an extension of Obamacare credits is their minimum demand for supporting any government-funding measure.
Instead, Thune wants Democrats to accept a “clean” continuing resolution to give appropriators more time to clinch a bipartisan full-year funding deal.
“But not on a short-term CR that’s going to be clean and hopefully quick so we can buy ourselves some time to do bigger appropriations,” Thune told reporters Tuesday night about addressing Obamacare credits in a funding bill. This was the most definitive Thune has been on the issue so far.
Yet Democratic senators across the ideological spectrum are making clear they’ll reject this, even though Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hasn’t yet laid out specific demands.
When asked about his must-haves in any CR, Schumer told us “I’m not going to negotiate in public. The bottom line is they have to sit down and talk to us.”
At Tuesday’s closed-door lunch meeting, Schumer presented battleground polling showing Republicans would be blamed for a shutdown if they’re seen as not negotiating with Democrats.
Déjà vu? Six months ago, House Republicans passed a partisan CR with only GOP votes, forcing Schumer to ultimately break with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and vote for the six-month funding bill. But the reality is that only a small percentage of Senate Democrats’ votes are actually in play right now, potentially far fewer than the 10 who backed the March CR.
“I think we’re in a different place than March,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told us. “I need Republicans to act like adults and negotiate in good faith. I need them to say that Trump’s lawlessness is going to somehow be curbed.”
Let’s be clear: Republicans will never get behind anything resembling what Slotkin outlined. She’s reflecting a desire among the party’s base to fight back harder against the Trump administration. Yet those demands echo the failed Democratic push in March to somehow secure language forcing the White House to spend money as Congress approved it, something Republicans were never going to accept.
With so much at stake over the next few weeks, Schumer and Jeffries are hoping to avoid a similar debacle and are taking steps to sync up on a strategy. The New Yorkers are scheduled to meet today alongside other Democratic leaders and committee rankers.
“The main thing that I think Chuck took from March is, let’s start this process earlier… The membership felt kind of like, ‘Wow, all of a sudden at the end, we have to choose between two really bad options,’” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said.
Kaine cautioned that while Senate Democrats are in a better position this time, it “depends on some Republican willingness to include” Democratic priorities.
If Speaker Mike Johnson can get nearly every House Republican on board with a short-term CR — as he did in March — giving Democrats a win or two won’t be necessary in his chamber. Thune, however, can’t get a bill through the Senate with GOP votes alone.
One Democrat we spoke with seemed comfortable with allowing more time for appropriations talks to continue. Retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a leading voice on Obamacare subsidies, said the funding process is “the one place” Senate Republicans have stood up to Trump.
Shaheen noted that in individual appropriations bills, GOP senators have agreed to restore much of the funding Trump has unilaterally cut. “That’s really important and we need to have that continue to play out,” Shaheen added.
So Schumer will be under a ton of pressure from all sides of his caucus, especially if there’s a shutdown and the price to get out of it could be higher. House Democrats are already angry at Schumer — as we scooped in Tuesday’s Midday edition — and it could get worse if he’s seen as caving now.
House view. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), who’s co-leading a push for a bipartisan extension of the Obamacare credits, told us he’d view GOP movement on the issue as “an important opening bid” in funding talks, although he wouldn’t say if that alone is enough.
“You can’t not negotiate with the Democrats and say, ‘Oh we want you to vote for this,’” Suozzi added. “That’s just not going to happen. I mean, I can’t imagine the same thing happening as last time after Sen. Schumer got so much grief.”
Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) said Democrats should focus on rising health care costs and the Obamacare subsidies, but also energy prices, climbing debt, tariffs and labor supply issues from Trump’s mass-deportation campaign.
Jeffries urged Democrats in a full caucus meeting and at a later meeting with progressives not to negotiate against themselves, and that it is too early to declare the Obamacare subsidies as the goal.
