(Bloomberg) — Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said his party would block a Republican spending bill to avert a government shutdown on Saturday and urged the GOP to accept a Democratic plan to provide funding through April 11 instead.
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Schumer’s declaration Wednesday raised the stakes in an ongoing game of chicken between congressional Republicans and Democrats and appeared to heighten the risk of a shutdown at a time financial markets are hyper-sensitive to new disruption.
US stocks have been whipsawed by President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff threats and fears that consumer and business uncertainty are already a drag on the US economy.
Yet it’s unclear whether Schumer can muster support from moderate Democrats to carry out the threat, much less sustain a blockade over an extended shutdown — which could cause political blowback and hurt already embattled federal workers.
“Republicans do not have the votes,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday, laying down Democrats’ stand on the House-approved legislation.
Yet by Wednesday evening, there were signs that a deal could be worked out to avoid a shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he was open to allowing Democrats a vote on a short-term spending bill if they give consent to all final votes on the House measure, known as a continuing resolution, before the deadline.
“In the end, we want to fund the government. Hopefully they do, too. And the way to do that is to pass the CR,” Thune said, referring to the abbreviation for the legislation, known as a continuing resolution. “If they want to set up some sort of a consent agreement where we vote on that, we’ll see.”
In the Senate, 60 votes are needed to cut off procedural obstacles and Republicans only have 53 senators in the chamber.
Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said he believed Schumer was bluffing. “We aren’t going to do a short term bill,” he said.
Democrats’ most dedicated and active voters are clamoring for a confrontation to constrain Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to dismantle entire federal agencies. But many moderates want to wait and let Trump fail on economic matters without getting in his way. A government shutdown could also shift some of the blame for an increasingly shaky economy onto Democrats.
House Republicans passed legislation on Tuesday to finance the government through Sept. 30, daring moderate Democrats in the Senate to block the measure over objections it fails to constrain Musk.
House Republicans left Washington for a two-week break after the vote, which drew the support of only one Democrat. Senate Republicans have said there is no viable alternative to the House-passed bill.
Moderate Senate Democrats have been coy about how they would vote. Tensions over the impending shutdown appeared to boil over at a party lunch on Wednesday, with shouting heard in the hallway outside.
At least one Senate Democrat said he will not back a strategy that risks a lapse in government funding.
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a state Trump has now won twice, announced he would never vote to shut down the government, declaring in social media post that to do so would “punish millions or risk a recession.”
Democrats historically have been much more reluctant than Republicans to make threats to shut down the government, in part because the party ideologically places a high value on government services and benefits to the public.
Yet some of them fear that failing to draw a line now would set a precedent for a larger battle in the fall when Republicans plan to enact Musk’s cuts into law for fiscal 2026.
Democrats did spur a short funding lapse in 2018 during the first Trump administration as part of an effort to protect immigrants brought to the US illegally as children. But that shutdown only lasted a few days before Democrats backed down and agreed to a deal reopening the government.
Still, several moderates said after the Wednesday Senate Democratic lunch that they want a short-term alternative in order to work out a bipartisan long-term bill.
Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said that Democrats want a vote on an amendment that would change the stopgap funding to a short-term measure, in exchange for ending their filibuster of the House bill. If that amendment fails, then the Senate could vote on the House bill ahead of the deadline.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat who just announced that she will not seek reelection in 2026, said she believes some Senate Republicans are not happy with the House bill and could go along with the short-term measure.
Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, who said she “hates” the House bill, nonetheless told reporters she doesn’t see how a short-term bill could pass Congress.
(Updates with Thune, starting in sixth paragraph.)
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