US government on brink of first shutdown in almost 7 years

WASHINGTON (AP) — A partisan standoff is threatening to trigger the first U.S. government shutdown in almost seven years, with Democrats and Republicans in Congress unable to find agreement.

The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, if the Senate does not pass a House measure that would extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills. Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for it unless Republicans include an extension of expiring health care benefits, among other demands. President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans say they won't negotiate, arguing the continuing resolution is a stripped-down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial.

A bipartisan meeting at the White House on Monday was Trump’s first with all four leaders in Congress since retaking the White House for his second term. But Trump made it clear he had little interest in negotiations.

“Their ideas are not very good ones,” Trump said of Democrats before the meeting.

Millions of people could face higher insurance premiums if the health care subsidies expire at the end of the year. Congress first put them in place in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to expand coverage for low- and middle-income people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats say they want health care subsidies set to expire at the end of the year to be immediately extended. They have also demanded that Republicans reverse the Medicaid cuts that were enacted as a part of Trump's “big, beautiful bill” this summer, and for the White House to promise it will not move to rescind spending passed by Congress.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later. Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, but many are strongly opposed to it. Thune has said Republicans would want new limits on the expanded subsidies — something Democrats would not likely agree to.

In a back-and-forth with Schumer on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, Thune said Republicans “are happy to fix the (Affordable Care Act) issue" and have offered to negotiate with Democrats — if they will vote to keep the government open until Nov. 21. Thune said Democrats would “have the same leverage then” as they do now.

Democrats are in an uncomfortable position for a party that has long denounced shutdowns as pointless and destructive, and it's unclear how or when it would end. 

The stakes are huge for federal workers across the country as the White House told agencies last week that they should consider “a reduction in force” for many federal programs if the government shuts down. That means that workers who are not deemed essential could be fired instead of just furloughed.

Either way, most would not get paid. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in a letter to Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst on Tuesday that around 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day once a shutdown begins

Trump said Tuesday that “we may do a lot” of layoffs, “and it’s only because of the Democrats.”

Federal agencies were already preparing. On the home page of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a large pop-up ad reads: “The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people."