Senate Rejects Bills to Pay Federal Workers During Shutdown

Happy Thursday! On this date in 2001, Apple released its iPod music player. The company reportedly sold some 450 million of the devices before discontinuing the product line in 2022. Unfortunately, that example of technological progress is about the only progress we can report today. Here's your shutdown update.

Senate Rejects Bills to Pay Federal Workers During Shutdown

On Day 23 of the government shutdown, the Senate rejected competing Republican and Democratic bills to pay military servicemembers and some federal workers. With many federal workers set to miss their first full paycheck tomorrow and programs providing food and heating assistance on the verge of running out of money, senators headed home for the weekend following Thursday's session, ending another week with no progress toward re-opening the government.

The shutdown is now the second longest on record and is set to continue into next week and potentially beyond. Lawmakers in both parties are sticking to their positions, and President Donald Trump has backed GOP lawmakers' insistence that the government must reopen before any negotiations on Democrats' demand to extend expiring healthcare subsidies.

"Trump is the off-ramp," Wisconsin's Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin told Punchbowl News. "If he says to his Republican leaders in Congress, 'Fix this,' it'll happen."

But Trump is heading to Asia on Friday night and is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping next Thursday, leaving little hope that he will get more engaged on the shutdown in the coming days.

Dueling bills defeated: On the Senate floor Thursday, a Republican plan to pay federal employees who must work through the shutdown, along with active-duty military and contractors, fell short of the 60 votes it needed to pass. The 54-45 vote saw three Democrats, Pennsylvania's John Fetterman and Georgia's Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, join with Republicans in support of the bill, which was brought by Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

"The Democrats continue to play political games. They are desperately afraid of their far-left base, and that's why we're in the #SchumerShutdown," Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a post on X.

Democrats said the legislation failed to help furloughed workers and would give the administration too much power to decide which employees get paid and which continue to be furloughed without pay.

Two senators in the Democratic caucus who have been voting in favor of a GOP stopgap funding bill - Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine - all opposed the measure. Thune changed his vote to "No" to allow for another vote on the legislation.

Republicans also objected to a voice vote on Democratic legislation introduced by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen that would pay all federal employees, both those required to work through the shutdown and those who have been furloughed, as well as servicemembers and contractors. The bill would have also prevented the Trump administration from carrying out "reductions in force" of federal workers during the funding lapse.

"No federal worker or servicemember should be punished for this shutdown that was brought on through no fault of their own," Van Hollen said in a statement. "Republicans are hell-bent on letting Trump pick winners and losers here, but every federal worker, servicemember, and federal contractor deserves to get paid."

Another bill, introduced by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, would have provided a one-time appropriation to cover pay for servicemembers, federal employees and contractors who have missed any compensation from October 1 to the date the bill is enacted. It was also blocked.

What's next: Republicans are shifting tactics a bit and could force votes next week on shutdown pay for the military, air traffic controllers and TSA employees as well as food assistance. Those measures may not get the votes needed to pass, but they could add to the pressure on Democrats.

The bottom line: The pain of the shutdown is growing, but neither side is budging ahead of a potentially crucial date on November 1, when open enrollment starts for Affordable Care Act plans.

Millions of Americans on Track to Lose Food Aid on November 1

Due to a lack of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, at least half of all states plan to cut off their major food aid efforts on November 1 if the government shutdown continues.

States have been drawing on their own funds to keep their food aid programs going, but 25 states told Politico that they are running out of options and will close their programs in a bit more than a week.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told reporters that states cannot possibly match the level of funding provided by the federal government as she announced that her state would suspend its food aid next month. "Donald Trump is the first president in U.S. history to cut off SNAP benefits to people in America," Healey, a Democrat, said. "And that affects millions and millions of people in America and certainly in Massachusetts."

The federal government would reportedly need to provide about $9 billion in funding to keep state food aid programs operating in November. "We just can't do it without the government being open," Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday. "By November 1, we are very hopeful this government reopens and we can begin moving that money out. But right now, half the states are shut down on SNAP."

Roughly 42 million people in 22 million households receive SNAP benefits each month, with an average monthly benefit of about $188 per household. In fiscal year 2024, the federal government spent nearly $100 billion on the program.

Source of pressure? Some lawmakers are hoping that the prospect of losing such a major aid program will push Congress to make a deal to fund the government, or at least some key programs. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said earlier this week that the impending funding cliff would not cause him to change his approach, though he hoped it would change some minds across the aisle. "It should change Republicans' calculus, that they should sit down and negotiate - negotiate a way to address this crisis," Schumer said.

Republicans, though, continue to blame Democrats for the shutdown and all of its ill effects. "The shutdown is Democrat performance art - the audience starves while the elitist critics applaud," one unnamed White House official said, per Politico.

The suspension of food aid, though, will hit supporters of both parties, potentially affecting millions in both blue states and red states. California has 4.5 million SNAP beneficiaries facing a loss of aid, but 800,000 people in Louisiana, which has one of the highest SNAP participation rates, could also lose out.

Trump Sets Funding Gap Record

President Donald Trump has been in office for more days while the government lacks funding than any other American leader.

As Axios's April Rubin reports, Trump has presided over three funding gaps during his two administrations, lasting 57 days in total as of Thursday. Most of those days (36) occurred in his first administration, though the tally for his second administration is almost certainly headed higher.

The tally pushes Trump past the previous record holder, former President Jimmy Carter, who presided over 56 days of funding gaps across five separate incidents.

An important historical note: None of Carter's funding gaps led to government shutdowns and mass furloughs of federal workers, at least under the statistical methodology used by Axios. But after Carter's Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued legal opinions stating that the government must cease to function whenever funding lapses, shutdowns started to become a regular feature of U.S. political life in the 1980s.

Shutdown News

• Senate Rejects Bills to Pay Federal Workers During Government Shutdown – Associated Press
• Senate Rejects Pay Plan for Some Federal Workers – Politico
• At Least 25 States Plan to Cut Off Food Aid Benefits in November – Politico
• US Health Workers Recalled From Shutdown Furlough for Medicare, ACA Enrollments – New York Times
• Government Shutdown Will Hit Air-Traffic Controllers Soon – Wall Street Journal
• Cruz Introduces Bill to Pay Air Traffic Controllers During Shutdown – Politico
• Blaming Democrats, Johnson Won't Bring House Back to Pay Air Traffic Controllers – Politico
• Disaster Relief Fund Hits Critical Low as Shutdown Endures – Bloomberg
• Obamacare 'Auto-Enrollees' Are Key Target as Republicans Formulate Tax-Credit Extension Plan – Politico
• Trump Bypasses Shutdown Fight to Focus on Ceasefires, Ballroom – Bloomberg

Other News

• The East Wing Is Gone, and Trump Turns to Damage Control – Washington Post
• Who's Paying for Trump's $300 Million Ballroom? – PBS News
• What Lawmakers Are Saying About Trump's Demolition of the East Wing – Associated Press
• Oz Says Trump Has a Plan to Replace Obamacare - but Offers No Specifics – NBC News
• Trump's Approach to Lowering Drug Costs Is Raising Questions – Roll Call
• Drug With a 30-Year Monopoly Is Target of State-Level Push to Curb Prices – New York Times
• China's Soybean Feud With Trump Leaves US Farmers With Huge Crops and Few Buyers – Bloomberg
• Officials Show Little Proof That New Tech Will Help Medicaid Enrollees Meet Work Rules – KFF Health News
• 101 Republicans to Defend Community Finance Program From Trump Cuts – Politico
• Trump Administration Cuts Cyberdefense Even as Threats Grow – New York Times
• Trump Approval on Economy Hits New Low: Quinnipiac Poll – The Hill
• Trump Backs Off Federal Deployment in San Francisco After Huang, Benioff Phone Calls – CNBC
• 'It's Really a Political Problem': Ray Dalio on the U.S. Debt Crisis – NPR

Views and Analysis

• As Shutdown Drags and Trump Flexes, Congress Cedes Its Relevance – Carl Hulse, New York Times
• Health Care Compromise Appears Far Off as the Government Shutdown Stalemate Persists – Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press
• The Shutdown Cliff That Could Hit Democrats Hard – Meredith Lee Hill, Politico
• Republicans Struggle to Explain Shutdown of the House – Paul Kane, Washington Post
• The Health Insurance Cost Crisis Is Now Upon Us – David Dayen, American Prospect
• The Ugliness After the Shutdown – Kimberley A. Strassel, Wall Street Journal
• The Government Shutdown Is Reaching a Tipping Point That Could Send the Economy Into a Downward Spiral – Greg Robb, MarketWatch
• Here's Where the Economy Is Starting to Show 'K-Shaped' Bifurcation – Laya Neelakandan, CNBC
• It Looks Like the US Has a Sovereign Wealth Fund Now – Joe Deaux, Bloomberg
• If Dems Won't Tax Billionaires After This, What Are They Even Doing? – Igor Volsky, New Republic
• Does the World Economy Even Know There's a Trade War? – Clive Crook, Bloomberg
• Would Capping the COLA Help Save Social Security? – Patrick Djordjevic, The Hill
• Federal Tax System Remains Highly Progressive After the OBBBA – Garrett Watson, Tax Foundation
• The Real Trouble With the Fed's Jobs Data Turmoil – Neil Irwin, Axios
• Tariffs Are a Weaker Weapon Than Trump Thinks – Edward Fishman, Financial Times
• A Republic, but Can We Keep It? – Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal