Lawmakers fail to reach deal with partial shutdown looming

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Sunday blasted Republicans over for threat of what he called “a harmful and unnecessary government shutdown” as Congress struggles to strike a bipartisan deal days out from a key funding deadline. 

“We are mere days away from a partial government shutdown on March 1. Unless Republicans get serious, the extreme Republican shutdown will endanger our economy, raise costs, lower safety, and exact untold pain on the American people,” Schumer wrote in a letter to lawmakers Sunday. 

Schumer said “intense discussions” continue between bipartisan leadership in both chambers, along with top appropriators in the upper chamber. 

Lawmakers have until Mar. 1 to pass legislation to fund the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and other offices for fiscal 2024 or risk their first partial government shutdown in years.  

Spending cardinals in both chambers have been working for weeks crafting the 12 annual government funding bills that must win bipartisan support to pass. However, many senior appropriators have acknowledged partisan riders as a key hurdle in talks.  

“We’ve basically finished our negotiation at the subcommittee level,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) — head of the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriation subcommittee — told The Hill shortly before the House’s recess earlier this month.  

“There are some unresolved items that we’ve kicked up obviously to the four corners,” he added, referring to riders and other issues. 

The House Freedom Caucus also sought to dial pressure up on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) earlier this week to put forward a yearlong stopgap funding bill. The legislation would trigger automatic cuts to government spending if the party doesn’t win concessions on controversial policy riders. 

Some of the measures the ultraconservative caucus has pressed for include efforts to reduce “Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ salary to $0,” target the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy and defund Planned Parenthood. 

At the same time, however, Democrats have also been applying pressure on the other side of the aisle to oppose the so-called poison pills. 

As the clock ticks closer to the next shutdown threat, congressional leaders were expected to make an announcement on funding as soon as this weekend.  

Schumer said Sunday that lawmakers “hoped to have legislation ready this weekend” to give members time to review text but pinned blame on House Republicans shortly after, saying it’s clear the party needs “more time to sort themselves out.” 

“Unfortunately, extreme House Republicans have shown they’re more capable of causing chaos than passing legislation,” Schumer said. “It is my sincere hope that in the face of a disruptive shutdown that would hurt our economy and make American families less safe, Speaker Johnson will step up to once again buck the extremists in his caucus and do the right thing.” 

However, Republicans are already pushing back on Schumer’s comments, as some in the upper chamber have criticized leadership for not stepping up efforts to get funding bills passed sooner.

“All 12 spending titles passed out of @SenateApprops months ago. Schumer has refused to put them on the floor for debate, amendments & passage,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote on X in response to Schumer’s remarks.

“Instead, he spent FOUR MONTHS on a bill to fund the government of Ukraine…not YOUR U.S. GOVERNMENT,” he added.

The Hill has also reached out to Johnson’s office for comment.

Schumer also took aim at Johnson for not bringing up a major Senate-passed defense and foreign aid package to the floor that includes funding for Ukraine.

“I call on the Speaker to go to Ukraine and witness what we witnessed, because I believe it is virtually impossible for anyone with decency and goodwill to turn their back on Ukraine if they saw the horrors of that war with their own eyes,” Schumer wrote in the letter, which comes after he recently visited Ukraine as part of a congressional delegation over the weekend.

“If Speaker Johnson put the national security supplemental on the floor today, it would pass with a large number of both Democrats and Republicans. Now is the time for action. Speaker Johnson cannot let politics or blind obeisance to Donald Trump get in the way,” Schumer added.

Updated at 6:16 pm.