Oct. 14 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday failed for the eighth time to pass legislation that would end the government shutdown that is now two weeks old.
A Republican-backed bill that would temporarily fund the government through Nov. 21 failed on a 49-45 vote, requiring 60 votes to advance under Senate rules.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against the bill. On the other side of the aisle, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine voted in favor of the bill.
The vote means that the shutdown will extend into its 15th day on Wednesday with no clear offramp.
Democrats have demanded that extensions of health insurance subsidies be included in any funding deal. Tens of millions of Americans are expected to see their health insurance premiums skyrocket after the subsidies expire at the end of the year.
During a floor speech Tuesday, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., chastised President Donald Trump for meeting with Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei to offer a $20 billion bailout for his nation’s struggling economy.
“This Argentina bailout is a slap in the face to farmers and working families worried about keeping healthcare,” he said. “If this administration has $20 billion to spare for a MAGA-friendly foreign government, they can’t turn around to say we don’t have the money to lower health care costs here at home.”
During a press availability earlier that day, Senate majority leader John Thune, R-S.D., blamed any pain from the shutdown on Democrats, demanding that they agree to fund the government before negotiating on healthcare subsidies.
“This is outrageous what they are doing,” he said. “They ought to be ashamed.”
Thune called Schumer “checked out” and said the end will come from working with enough “reasonable Senate Democrats.”
Senators last voted on funding legislation on Thursday before heading into a long break coinciding with Monday’s bank holiday. With no action on the issue in several days, lawmakers in both chambers — and within the Trump administration — have used the time to trade criticisms over who’s to blame for the shutdown, which has left about 750,000 federal workers furloughed or working without pay.
In addition to furloughs, the Trump administration has begun carrying out mass firings, including 1,446 employees at the Justice Department and another 1,200 at the Department of Health and Human Services, USA Today reported.
The Trump administration said it’s working to make sure active-duty military service members receive their next paychecks Friday by repurposing about $8 billion Congress had appropriated for other areas of the Defense Department. President Donald Trump took to Truth Social over the weekend to announce he ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th.”
Johnson held a news conference Tuesday morning at the Capitol and said Trump had “every right” to repurpose the funds.
“If the Democrats want to go to court and challenge troops being paid, bring it,” Johnson said.
Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, told The Hill on Monday that it is legal for Congress to repurpose un-obligated funds, but for the administration to do so unilaterally “is likely illegal.”
“An un-obligated balance does not give the administration the right to use the money as it wishes,” Boccia said. “If Congress wants to ensure that America’s troops will be paid during the ongoing government shutdown, Congress should pass a bill that authorizes funding to pay the troops.”
Doing so would require a vote by the House, which is on recess for the rest of the week. Johnson has said he will not call House members back to Washington, D.C., early.
At the heart of the deadlock are subsidies for Affordable Care Act premiums set to expire in the new year.
Schumer has said Senate Democrats wouldn’t support the stopgap legislation unless Republicans back extending the subsidies.
The Trump administration has said it’s against extending the ACA subsidies, falsely claiming undocumented immigrants are benefitting from it. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for health insurance under the ACA, the federal healthcare.gov website states.