Compiled from news service reports
The federal government is shutting down after the Senate rejected two temporary funding bills, known as continuing resolutions, just five hours before the midnight Tuesday deadline.
One resolution was sponsored by Democrats and the other by Republicans. Both resolutions required 60 votes for passage in the Senate, and both failed largely along party lines, as they had already done on Sept. 19.
The Democratic resolution was rejected 47-53 along party lines. The Republican resolution failed, 55-45.
Prior to the votes, representatives of each party said that they wanted to avoid a shutdown and that their counterparts were responsible for the result.
In simplest terms, Republicans sought a short-term extension of current spending levels while lawmakers finalize appropriations for 2026, while Democrats are refusing to back any continuing resolution that does not include health care-related funding changes. Both parties appear to believe public opinion is on their side.
Democrats insisted on the need to reverse health care-related spending provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and make the COVID-era Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits permanent.
Democrats say their plan is necessary to prevent a loss of health coverage by tens of millions of people and avoid a sharp increase in health insurance premiums.
Republicans have said the Democrats’ proposal would add $1.5 trillion in spending and is an unserious starting point for discussions.
A Monday meeting of congressional leaders with President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, failed to produce a resolution.
Ahead of the Senate vote, both parties doubled down on their positions.
Democrats repeated their ideas that health care reform is vitally important and requires immediate action.
“Health care creates an urgency,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Tuesday. “Republicans are saying, ‘Agree to a clean CR and we’ll talk about this stuff later.’ But people get sick regardless of the Republican timetable.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told reporters she would not trust Republicans’ word that they would negotiate over health care during the normal appropriations process.
“There’s no trust,” DeLauro said. “Remember McCarthy-Biden, they walked away from the deal,” she added, referring to a negotiated spending agreement in 2023 that was not passed into legislation.
Republicans continued to say that Democrats’ insistence on placing complex health-related negotiations on a short-term spending agreement was confusing and unnecessary.
“They’re kind of all over the map,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri. “I can’t tell what they want.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Monday that he had made proposals to Republicans related to health care, but did not specify what they were.
When asked which health care issues Democrats were advancing, Blumenthal spoke instead about the urgency of addressing health care, adding, “I think it ends with some serious compromise on health care.”
During a White House press conference, Trump said the administration could do things that are “irreversible” during a shutdown, such as “cutting vast numbers” of federal workers.
“I think the record shows that he is firing people regardless of the shutdown,” Blumenthal said. “He just seems to be on that path.”
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., expressed optimism that the two sides could strike a deal centered on extending ACA enhanced premium tax credits.
“I just don’t think you’re going to have that much opposition on either side to giving an extension this year to the Obamacare subsidies,” Rounds said.
Rounds said that could be coupled with a 45-day continuing resolution to allow further appropriations work. However, he said: “I don’t know whether Democrat leadership can actually accept not going to a shutdown. They may very well feel they have to do a shutdown just to show their far left base that they’ll do it.”