A federal government shutdown looked increasingly likely Wednesday as House Republicans indicated they wouldn’t consider a bipartisan plan the Senate has advanced.
The different tactics nearly guarantee a government shutdown, unless lawmakers can force some other long-shot solution. The two chambers working in opposition to one another probably won’t have enough time to pass a stopgap spending bill — called a continuing resolution, or CR — before the current funding laws expire at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.
“Speaker McCarthy: The only way — the only way — out of a shutdown is bipartisanship,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Wednesday in a floor speech. “And by constantly adhering to what the hard right wants, you’re aiming for a shutdown. They want it, you know it, you can stop it. Work in a bipartisan way, like we are in the Senate, and we can avoid harm to tens of millions of Americans.
The House was slated to spend Wednesday debating legislation that would cover parts of the government for the whole 2024 fiscal year. The GOP-led chamber passed a procedural vote Tuesday night to advance a bundle of those bills — similar votes had failed earlier this week and last week as McCarthy fends off a rebellion from his right flank.The Senate moved into debate on its own short-term spending bill, which easily cleared a procedural hurdle of its own Tuesday evening.
The House didn’t yet have a short-term spending bill queued up. But neither chamber is in position to wrap up work before the funding deadline. If government spending isn’t extended, a shutdown would close certain federal agencies, deprive military service members and government employees of paychecks, hamstring crucial antipoverty programs and delay assistance to natural disaster victims.
“We’ve got a problem, national security problem and an economic problem, particularly with the border. That’s our leverage point,” Rep. Ralph Norman , an influential member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, told reporters Wednesday morning.
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