The Schumer Shutdown / U.S. Senate Photographic Studio/Jeff McEvoy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
by Emmitt Barry, with reporting from Washington D.C. Bureau Staff
(Worthy News) – Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R–S.D.) told Republican senators Thursday to prepare for a critical Friday vote aimed at ending the nation’s longest-ever government shutdown — now in its sixth week — as lawmakers scramble to reach a deal amid growing economic strain and partisan stalemate.
Thune’s revised proposal would merge a short-term spending measure with three full-year appropriations bills funding the legislative branch, agriculture, and military construction and veterans affairs. But the plan faces stiff resistance from Democrats, who have made the extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies their central demand before agreeing to reopen the government.
“We’ve got a dilemma,” said Sen. Peter Welch (D–Vt.). “There’s no other institution that can protect folks from the hammer blow of these explosive premium increases.”
Democrats say the subsidies — expanded during the pandemic to cap health-care premiums at 8.5% of household income — are essential for roughly 22 million Americans and must be written directly into any funding package, not promised in a separate future vote.
“Settling for some kind of vague promise about a vote in the future on some indeterminate bill, without any definite inclusion in the law, I think is a mistake,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.).
Thune argued that Democrats were moving the goalposts. “They seem to be walking back or slow-walking this,” he said. “This is what they asked for.”
Republicans, who hold a 53–47 Senate majority, are hoping Friday’s test vote will reveal whether any Democrats are willing to break ranks and support reopening the government under the GOP framework. “The clear path forward here is they get a vote [on ACA subsidies], we open up the government, and we sit down with the president,” Thune said. “This hostage-taking has got to stop.”
But Senate Democrats, after days of internal division, appear to have re-unified around their healthcare demand following strong election results earlier this week. “All of us in the caucus heard that loud and clear,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D–Conn.). “We want to stay together and unified.”
President Trump has so far refused to negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government, instead urging Senate Republicans to “end the filibuster and just put everybody back to work.” That idea has been rejected by more than a dozen GOP senators.
“The House did its job on Sept. 19,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.), referring to the House-passed stopgap measure that Senate Democrats blocked. “I’m not promising anybody anything.”
Republicans are also considering provisions to restore laid-off federal employees and provide back pay — an issue that could draw moderate Democratic support. Yet the ACA subsidies remain the major stumbling block.
Sen. Chris Coons (D–Del.) warned that progress would stall without direct engagement from the White House. “If their position remains, ‘We will not speak to you,’ we’re going to have a really hard time resolving this,” he said.
The shutdown, which began October 1 after Senate Democrats rejected the House’s stopgap bill, has now surpassed the 35-day record from the first Trump administration. It has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay, disrupted air travel, and cut off assistance to low-income families.
As lawmakers brace for Friday’s test vote, both parties face mounting pressure from voters and businesses demanding relief from a political standoff that has crippled Washington — with no clear end yet in sight.
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