Democrats are demanding that Congress extend health care benefits. But Republicans reject that saying the policy allows illegal aliens to get tax-payer funded health care.
“Until they have eight or hopefully more — 10 or more — people who want to, decide they want to end the government shutdown, I'm not sure this goes anywhere,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday.
Although Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, the Senate's filibuster rules make it necessary for the government funding legislation to gain support from at least 60 of the 100 senators. That's given Democrats a rare opportunity to use their 47 Senate seats to hold out in exchange for policy concessions.
Democrats are running the high-risk strategy of effectively voting for a government shutdown to make their stand. Trump has vowed to make it as painful as possible for them.
White House budget director Russ Vought has already announced that he is withholding funds for infrastructure projects in states with Democratic senators.
A few senators have engaged in bipartisan talks about launching negotiations on extending the ACA tax credits for one year while the Senate votes to reopen the government for several weeks. But those discussions are in their early stages and appear to have little involvement from leadership.
As senators prepared for their last scheduled vote for the week on Friday, they appeared resigned to allow the shutdown to continue at least into next week. Thune said that if the vote failed, he would “give them the weekend to think about it” before holding more votes.
