GOP Senators Threaten a Shutdown

Taking a big step to avoid a looming government shutdown, congressional leaders on Thursday announced that they had reached an agreement on a stopgap bill that would fund a variety of federal operations through mid-February. The House passed the continuing resolution that emerged from the agreement in a 221-212 vote late in the afternoon, with just one Republican crossing party lines to support the measure.

But lawmakers aren’t out of the woods quite yet. A handful of conservative Republicans are still threatening to delay the Senate vote on the spending bill as part of an effort to defund President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for private businesses. Their continued objections raise the risk of a government shutdown starting Friday at midnight, when the current short-term funding deal runs out.

Optimism about the deal: The stopgap funding measure would provide government funding at current levels through February 18, while providing an additional $7 billion for the resettlement of refugees from Afghanistan.

Leaders from both parties expressed confidence that the bill would pass through Congress and a shutdown would be avoided. “We’re not going to shut the government down,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said. “That makes no sense for anyone. Almost no one on either side thinks that’s a good idea.”

President Biden was also optimistic. “We have everything in place to be able to make sure there is not a shutdown,” he said. “There is a plan in place unless somebody decides to be totally erratic, and I don't think that will happen,” he added.

A Republican rebellion: A small group of hardline conservatives in the Senate — including Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) — continued to push for an amendment to the continuing resolution that would defund federal oversight of the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for private companies with more than 100 employees, which they say is unconstitutional and economically harmful. If their demand for such a vote is not met, one or more of the senators could delay the funding bill, making it impossible to pass by the midnight Friday deadline, resulting in a shutdown that could last several days.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Lee again condemned the vaccine mandate. “I don’t want to shut down the government,” he said. “The only thing I want to shut down is Congress funding enforcement of an immoral, unconstitutional vaccine mandate.”

Marshall claimed that his constituents strongly support his strategy. “My phone has blown up and continues to blow up and with the vaccine mandate issue, but not one Kansan has reached out to me to say, ‘Don't shut the government down,’” he said.

A possible solution: The hardliners say that a simple majority vote on their amendment to defund vaccination mandate enforcement would satisfy them. However, such a vote would be unusual, since it would normally require 60 votes to pass rather than 51, and that could be an issue for leaders in both parties.

“I've offered a very simple solution, a very reasonable solution. ... I just want to vote on one amendment," Lee said. “A simple up-or-down, yes or no, a simple-majority vote. That's all I'm asking. ... We're providing every opportunity to avoid a shutdown,” he added.

The simple majority threshold for a vote could be an important factor, as conservative Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia declined Thursday to say whether he would back the Republican effort. Although Manchin voted in September against an amendment that sought to undo the vaccine mandate for federal employees, the mandate affecting private employees may be a different matter.

“I’ve been very supportive of a mandate for federal government, for military ... I’ve been less enthused about it in the private sector,” Manchin said Thursday.

Pelosi says they’ll get it done: Though Manchin left others guessing about how he would approach the issue, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) left little room for interpretation as far as her views are concerned. Slamming the hardline Republicans for supporting those who oppose Covid-19 vaccines, Pelosi decried their “double sense of irresponsibility” for rejecting both science and the duty to govern.

“This is so silly that we have people who are anti-science, anti-vaccination saying they're going to shut down government over that,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “And you're asking me what's our message? Our message is that we have to respect governance, and we have to respect science, and that's what we are doing and we will pass this legislation," she added.

Pelosi said that she doesn’t think Republicans really want to shut down the government, and that she expects the continuing resolution to become law. “We will get it done, and we will get it done in a timely fashion,” she said.

President Biden on Thursday announced new steps to combat the Covid-19 pandemic heading into the winter months, calling for expanded campaigns to increase vaccinations and booster shots, improved availability of free at-home testing and stronger testing requirements for international travelers.

Biden emphasized that his plan “doesn’t include shutdowns or lockdowns” and said he hoped Americans would rally around the new efforts.

“My plan I’m announcing today pulls no punches in the fight against Covid-19. It’s a plan that I think should unite us,” he said. “I know Covid 19 has been very divisive in this country. It’s become a political issue, which is a sad, sad commentary. It shouldn’t be, but it has been. Now as we move into the winter and face the challenge of this new variant, this is a moment when we can put the divisiveness behind us, I hope. This is a moment we can do what we haven’t been able to do enough of through this whole pandemic: Get the nation to come together.”

Even as Biden spoke, though, Republicans on Capitol Hill were threatening to shut down the government briefly over their objections to the president’s vaccine mandate for large private employers.

What’s in Biden’s plan: “While some of the measures are new — notably a plan to launch ‘family mobile vaccination clinics,’ where all eligible members of a family could simultaneously get shots and boosters — others build on existing tactics, such as rallying businesses to mandate vaccination-or-testing requirements for employees,” The Washington Post reports.

As part of Biden’s plan, the government will ramp up efforts to get Americans, especially seniors, to get booster shots. The push will include new ads and events as well as a special notice sent to 63 million Medicare beneficiaries.

The plan also will enable Americans covered by private insurance to get reimbursed for buying rapid, at-home Covid tests and will make those tests more available to those without private insurance through health centers and clinics.

“Insurance reimbursement for at-home COVID tests is hardly the most efficient way to give people better access to affordable testing,” Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said on Twitter. “But, it is something the Biden Administration can do quickly with existing authority, and quick action is important right now.”

Biden also said that, starting early next week, inbound international travelers will be required to get a Covid test within one day of their trip, a tighter timeframe than had previously required. And he extended the requirement to wear a mask on airplanes, trains and public transportation through March 18, with the minimum fine for noncompliance doubled to $500 and fines of up to $3,000 for repeat offenders.

On guard against omicron: Biden’s announcement, made in a speech at the National Institutes of Health, came just hours after the second confirmed U.S. infection from the recently discovered omicron variant of the virus was found in Minnesota. A third case was confirmed in Colorado.

Biden said that one of his polling experts had suggested that some 30% of people who have insisted that they won’t be vaccinated may now be open to receiving the shots because of the new omicron variant. “We hope that’s true,” he said.

While that projection may be optimistic, any increase in vaccinations rates would be a welcome turn for public health experts concerned by persistent vaccine hesitancy fueled in large part by a proliferation of misinformation. The Washington Post notes that 58% of Americans were considered “fully vaccinated” as of November 1. A month later, that figure had only risen to 59.4%.

You can read more about Biden’s new plan here or here.

• House Passes Plan to Fund the Government as Republican Senators Stand by Shutdown Threat Ahead of Friday Deadline – CNN
• Shutdown Odds Escalate as Senate Fields House-Passed Funding Patch – Politico
• Conservatives Offer Shutdown Offramp in Exchange for Vaccine Mandate Vote – The Hill
• Manchin Won't Rule Out Backing GOP Effort to Defund Biden Vaccine Mandate – The Hill
• The Senate Remains Deadlocked on the Annual Defense Policy Bill With No Resolution in Sight. – Politico
• Congressional Leaders Are Discussing Whether to Address the Debt Limit in a Surprising Place: the Defense Policy Bill. – Politico
• Senate Sinks Deeper Into Quagmire of Dysfunction – Politico
• White House Confronts Grueling Choices as It Debates Major Cuts to Biden Economic Plan – Washington Post
• ‘Nothing Is Off the Table,’ White House Says as Omicron Detected in Second U.S. State – Washington Post
• Biden Is Looking at Blowout Growth Even as Covid Clouds the Outlook Again – Politico
• Omicron Could Knock a Fragile Economic Recovery Off Track – New York Times
• Janet Yellen Says It’s Time to Stop Calling Inflation ‘Transitory’ – New York Times
• Inflation Causing Hardship for 45% of U.S. Households – Gallup
• Moderate House Democrats Urge Leaders to Focus on Economic Issues Amid Worries Voters Blame Party for Inflation, Supply Chain Problems – Washington Post