Vote Fails 55-45, Five Votes Short; Democrats Insist on ACA Tax Credit Extension and Healthcare for ‘Illegal Aliens,’ Drawing GOP and White House Opposition
A government shutdown became increasingly likely late Tuesday evening after Senate Democrats voted against a temporary funding measure that would have kept the government operational through the end of November. The stopgap measure, which required 60 votes to pass, failed in the upper chamber by a final vote of 55 in favor and 45 against, just five votes shy of the necessary threshold.
The failed vote brings the midnight deadline for a funding deal into sharp focus, with lawmakers still at an impasse over the demands being made by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate counterpart Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
The Democratic leadership has repeatedly called on the Trump administration to “compromise” by including taxpayer-funded healthcare guarantees for “all Americans” in a continuing resolution, with the primary sticking point being their insistence on a permanent extension of expiring Obamacare tax credits and healthcare coverage for those in the country illegally.
Vice President JD Vance strongly criticized the Democratic proposal following a White House meeting on Monday, stating, “If you look at the original they did with this negotiation, it was a $1.5 trillion spending package, basically saying the American people want to give massive amounts of money, hundreds of billions of dollars to illegal aliens for their health care, while Americans are struggling to pay their health care bills.”
Congressional Republicans and the White House are advocating for a “clean,” short-term funding extension until November 21, while the GOP has labeled the Democrats’ demands as “off the table.”
Two Democratic Senators, John Fetterman (D-PA) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), broke ranks with their party to vote in favor of the funding measure, as did Senator Angus King (I-ME), who caucuses with Democrats. All Republicans, with the exception of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), also supported the motion.
Senator Fetterman took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to explain his vote: “It’s a sad day for our nation. Our government shuts down at midnight,” he wrote. “I voted AYE to extend ACA tax credits because I support them—but I won’t vote for the chaos of shuttering our government. My vote was for our country over my party. Together, we must find a better way forward.”
Cortez Masto similarly stated that voting to fund the government was necessary because doing otherwise would “hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) warned that the deadlock was driven by partisan opposition to the administration. “The far left’s determination to oppose everything President Trump has said or done is not a good reason to subject the American people to the pain of a government shutdown,” Thune said.
Speaking from the White House, President Donald Trump cautioned that a shutdown driven by the Democrats’ current plan could lead to thousands of federal workers being permanently fired.
“As you know, we, this country, no country can afford to pay for illegal Immigration health care for everybody that comes into the country, and that’s what they’re insisting, and obviously I have an obligation to not accept that,” the president said.
Trump also suggested a shutdown could be leveraged to eliminate unwanted programs, adding, “A lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want. And they’d be Democrat things.”
Please make a small donation to the Tampa Free Press to help sustain independent journalism. Your contribution enables us to continue delivering high-quality, local, and national news coverage.
