Partisan rancor in Congress raises risk of US government shutdown this fall

Reuters

7 days ago

WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) - Growing Democratic rancor in the U.S. Congress over President Donald Trump's tactics on the federal budget is threatening the long legislative tradition of funding the government through bipartisan deals, while raising the risk of a partial shutdown this fall.
Republicans stirred the Democrats' distrust by clawing back $9 billion of congressionally approved money at the White House's behest and discussing making further such rescissions.
Some hardline Republicans have floated the unprecedented idea of bypassing Senate rules requiring 60 of the 100 members to agree on most legislation to pass a funding bill for the fiscal year beginning October 1 without any Democratic votes.
"Republicans in Congress are bowing down to Donald Trump and ratifying some of his worst efforts," Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a floor speech outlining her unwillingness to cooperate on government funding without a Republican agreement not to rescind the money later.
"The Trump administration is saying, loud and clear, Donald Trump makes all the decisions."
The budgeting process has long been strained. For almost three decades lawmakers have failed to pass the 12 bills that are meant to detail the government's discretionary spending and the government has partially shut down 14 times since 1981 as lawmakers have missed deadlines.
The annual battle over discretionary spending involves less than a third of the roughly $6.75 trillion federal budget, with funding for programs like building roads and supporting schools. The rest is mandatory spending including Social Security, Medicare and roughly $1 trillion of financing costs for the nation's $36 trillion in debt.
As the Senate prepares to leave Washington for a month-long summer recess, Republicans have also hardened their rhetoric about government funding by trying to blame any future shutdown on Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
"If we end up with a Schumer shutdown at the end of the year, the Democrats are going to own that," Senate Majority Leader John Thune told a news conference.
The last government shutdown, which stretched over 35 days from late 2018 into early 2019, occurred during Trump's first term in office. Polling at the time showed that voters blamed Republicans for the disruption.
The task of keeping the government funded has historically fallen to bipartisan negotiators to find deals that can pass the House of Representatives and garner the 60 votes needed to approve most legislation in the Senate.
"Budgeting is hard. Budgeting is governing. And the way things have been so politicized and partisanized, it makes it almost impossible for Congress to legislate effectively," said William Hoagland, a former Senate Republican aide and fiscal legislation veteran who is now at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank.
This time around, the challenge has been complicated by the aggressive tactics of Trump budget director Russell Vought, who has withheld funding appropriated by Congress, succeeded in getting Republicans to defund Democratic priorities including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and threatened to use so-called pocket rescissions to withhold other allocated funds.
Trump has also proposed a fiscal 2026 budget that calls for $163 billion in spending cuts.
"We all want to pursue a bipartisan, bicameral appropriations process," Schumer told reporters. "The Republicans are making it extremely difficult to do that."
Hardline conservative House Republicans have been discussing the possibility of setting a new precedent for partisanship by using the parliamentary process known as budget reconciliation to pass full-year 2026 funding legislation to reopen government agencies at lower spending levels in the event of a shutdown.
The tactic was most recently used to pass Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill earlier this month. Democrats also used it under President Joe Biden to pass his domestic agenda.
"It's not a serious discussion yet. But it might be as we get closer to September 30," said Representative Andy Harris, chair of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus.
Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has floated the possibility of further reconciliation packages, said they have not considered the idea. Some traditional-minded Republicans have rejected it out of hand.
"That's a bad idea," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole said. "It means everything has to be partisan all the time. Appropriations, historically, is bipartisan."
But hardliners who have seen their demands for deep spending cuts frustrated over the years say Republicans could need an alternative to the usual bipartisan path.
"We'd all prefer that you do the appropriations process. So, we should keep trying to get that done. But if we can't, and we have to look at something else, we'll look at something else," said Representative Jim Jordan, a leading hardliner.
"Whether we'll do that or not, I don't know. But it's already happened," the Ohio Republican said when asked about reconciliation as a way to reopen shuttered federal agencies.
Experts say using reconciliation as a vehicle to reopen shuttered federal agencies may not be feasible, given that Congress would first need to pass a budget resolution that could take weeks or even months to craft.
But hardliners say they are aware of that issue.
"It's hard to do reconciliation at the last minute. That's the problem," said Representative Warren Davidson.
Asked if the potentially long lead time ruled out its use, the Ohio Republican replied: "I hope not. We're trying to make sure it doesn't die."