The Republican government funding bill that passed the House this week does not have enough support from Democrats to clear the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday. If the standoff holds, funding of the federal government will end at midnight Friday. At this point, any one of the 100 senators could prevent a vote procedurally before the deadline, NBC News reports. "Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input—any input—from congressional Democrats," Schumer said on the Senate floor.
The GOP bill would bankroll the government through the end of September; Schumer said Democrats want a 30-day bill to allow time to negotiate a bipartisan solution, per the New York Times. House Democrats had called on their counterparts in the Senate to oppose the GOP bill, as they had. They've objected to the bill's increases for military spending and decreases for other programs, calling the measure a power grab by Republicans. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said it "further unleashes and entrenches Elon Musk's efforts" to slash government.
One obstacle to passing a reworked bill is the fact that House members would have to return to the Capitol. GOP leaders adjourned and left Washington on Tuesday to try to force Democrats to live with their bill. "Quite frankly, both outcomes are bad," Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock told reporters on Wednesday, per NBC. "If it passes, it will hurt a lot of ordinary people on the ground. If the government shuts down, that will hurt a lot of ordinary people on the ground," he added. While Democrats held a lunch meeting on the dilemma, Sen. Mark Kelly said, "I'm weighing the badness of each option." (More government spending stories.)
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