Today is Oct. 30. That means it’s been a month since FY2025 ended and federal agencies closed. This will become the longest government shutdown in American history by the end of next week barring some miracle. The Senate is heading home this afternoon without doing anything to reopen the government.
There’s been absolutely no movement for weeks now. Every potential off-ramp has been closed, with both Republicans and Democrats digging in even deeper.
Has that definitively changed? No.
But there’s been some optimistic talk in the Capitol over the last few days, with rank-and-file senators saying they’ve restarted bipartisan negotiations over FY2026 spending bills.
Let’s be abundantly clear here: A bipartisan appropriations package doesn’t solve what’s at the heart of this shutdown impasse — a fundamental disagreement over the Covid-era enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies. Democrats have said they won’t vote to reopen the government without a concrete deal on these tax credits. And the vast majority of Republicans — including Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune — have little to no interest in extending them.
Thune raised eyebrows Wednesday after saying he would be meeting “pretty soon” with Democrats who’ve been involved in informal bipartisan talks over health care and the shutdown. But Thune later said he doesn’t have “anything to report” about a potential meeting and said his position remains the same: Open up the government, then we’ll talk.
Yet the view among senators goes like this: Any progress — or even better, an agreement — on full-year spending bills can help sweeten whatever Obamacare-related deal materializes to end the shutdown.
It’s also a way to rebuild bipartisan trust that’s all but disappeared during this bitter shutdown fight.
The theory seems to be that Congress should try to get a spending deal and hope that Trump will eventually engage on Obamacare subsidies. This is a risky bet. Trump, who is just finishing a major Asia trip, has been unwilling to do anything so far to end the shutdown. An alternative view is that Trump could cut a deal with Democrats that Republicans hate.
Another weakness in this strategy for Democrats is that it further separates the Obamacare issue from government funding.
Unless Republicans decide to negotiate on ACA subsidies now (they say they won’t) or Democrats are willing to accept a GOP promise that health care talks will start after the government is open (they say they can’t), this shutdown will drag on without an obvious end.
But the FY2026 spending talks are at least registering some very modest signs of life.
For now, the imminent expiration of SNAP funding and the increasingly frequent air traffic delays at major hubs across the United States are focusing Congress’ mind on the absurdity of the now month-long shutdown.
The spending wars. Bipartisan discussions on the full-year spending bills picked up on Wednesday after being at a standstill over the last few weeks. That doesn’t mean lawmakers are on the precipice of reopening the government anytime soon. For many senators, this is more about avoiding a year-long CR than anything else.
Democrats ran a hotline Wednesday night on an agreement to group three appropriations bills with the defense spending bill, as we scooped: Labor-HHS, Transportation-HUD and Commerce-Justice-Science. The hotline — a way to check for objections — also included language from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) regarding the dispute over the new FBI headquarters.
After blocking a vote on the FY2026 Defense appropriations bill two weeks ago, Democrats are looking to show there would be no problems on their side to move forward with a larger spending package.
Instead, there may be issues on the GOP side. Conservatives likely will have problems with the bipartisan Labor-HHS bill that the Senate Appropriations Committee advanced. The FBI issue in CJS also roiled the Appropriations panel earlier this year. Plus, appropriators included an amendment in the CJS bill that would require Attorney General Pam Bondi to give the panel a report on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The Democratic hotline came shortly after Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said that when Democrats blocked the defense spending bill earlier this month, she wanted to add more than just the Labor-HHS bill. The Democratic hotline includes two additional spending bills for a total of four.
Collins also wants to finalize a bicameral agreement on the three-bill minibus the Senate already passed, which would cover Agriculture, Military Construction-VA and the Legislative Branch.
“These have been bipartisan negotiations with the ‘Four Corners,’” Collins said, referring to the top GOP and Democratic appropriators in both the House and Senate. “They could be wrapped up very quickly.”
The House. This structure could present both Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries with problems.
Even though Johnson says he wants a bipartisan, bicameral spending deal, anything that comes out of the Senate will face gigantic hurdles in a conference committee and eventually on the House floor. That’s been true all throughout this shutdown. The rubber is going to meet the road on this for Johnson at some point.
And for Jeffries, the separation of Obamacare and FY2026 spending is going to be a problem. House Democratic leaders have taken a very, very clear line that the two need to stay connected.
But it’s clear that the Senate is beginning to appear interested in getting out of this shutdown. And it will be up to Jeffries to square that circle with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
News: Vice President JD Vance will lead a roundtable at the White House this afternoon focused on how the shutdown is impacting aviation.
We’re told that the attendees include Airlines for America CEO and former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and other industry leaders.
