The Senate passed a spending bill to keep the government open

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: Do Republicans want to go after the Wall Street, or does Congress want to stay that way? The congressional budget crisis in Kentucky isn’t over

The Senate Democrats who were against the bill argued that if they helped pass it they could give Trump and Musk the power to further cut the federal government. They also said that a shutdown would cause pain and disruption. The “least worst outcome” would be what the Democrats were wrestling with, according to New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich.

The decision by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to give one of the crucial Democratic votes in order to pass a partisan spending bill was a big shock to House Democrats.

“It’s time for Democrats to fish or cut bait,” Thune said in a speech on the Senate floor. “We have two days until government funding expires. And Democrats need to decide if they’re going to support funding legislation that came over from the House, or if they’re going to shut down the government.”

The base wants them to fight the fire cuts to the federal workforce and block a funding bill that was written without Democratic input.

Democrats say it isn’t that simple. There are some who worry about the unpredictable impact and how the plan would be to get out of a shutdown. Also weighing on Democrats hoping to regain control of at least one chamber of Congress is 2026 is the political impact. Republicans control the House, Senate and White House, but Trump has a large microphone and Senate Democrats will end up determining what happens.

“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Wednesday. Republicans drafted a continuing resolution with no input from Congressional Democrats. Republicans in the Senate did not have the votes for cloture on the House CR.

Senate Republicans will see at least one defection. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul said last week he would vote no on the plan, unless it could codify cuts led by Elon Musk, the billionaire and advisor to President Trump.

John Fetterman, a Senate Democrat from Pennsylvania, has said publicly that he would support the CR. Fetterman said he wants to avoid a shutdown: “that’s chaos and I will never vote for chaos.”

Schumer instead called for a four-week stopgap measure on Wednesday, which would keep agencies funded at current levels through April 11 as both parties negotiate on the annual spending bills.

On the Senate Democrats’ Opposition to the re-election spending bill and how to stop spending, but will not let us know that Congress is going to pass

He didn’t expect it to pass, however, after telling reporters that he was open to giving Democrats an opportunity to vote. He said he had not heard any offer from Democrats yet.

“If they want to vote on that in exchange for getting us the votes to pass to September 30, I think we’re open to that. “I think the final action will have to be because the House is gone, so what happens is going to have to be,” he said.

The two Senate Democrats up for re- election in the next decade decided to vote no on the short term bill after Schumer pushed for it. Schumer said his caucus was united, but some Democrats disagreed.

“If the government shuts down, the country will plunge into chaos, or an Exchange cloture will fail, but it won’t be a real crisis,” he said on social media.

Both Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, who are Democrats, came out against the funding bill through september after saying for a long time they had concerns about the stopgap and a possible shutdown in their state.

House Democrats remained largely united on opposing the plan, and many took to social media to urge their Senate Democratic counterparts to do the same.

“I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal and this is not just progressive Democrats — this is across the board, the entire party,” New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Thursday night at a party retreat in Leesburg, Va.

Senate Democrats were worried about how their peers in the House would vote on a GOP spending bill, even though all but one of the House Democrats voted against it. Many Democrats saw that vote as a moment of solidarity and hoped Senators would follow suit.

The vote is not just about the spending bill, warned the former chair of the caucus. If we give in on this, we’re going to give in on so many other things.

She explained that voting for the CR is not correct because it codifies the chaos and the reckless cuts that Musk has been pursuing. If Senate democrats vote for the CR they will be able to do that.

She said that there’s time to “correct course” and that she and her colleagues were calling and texting senators to convince them not to support the cloture vote.

She said a shutdown was not inevitable. We can extend the government for 30 days in order to allow Republicans to negotiate with Democrats.

“This is not a time to have a lack of clarity and lack of purpose. “This is a good time to make a decision about what you’re going to do,” New Mexico Rep. Gabriel Villasenor told NPR before Schumer spoke.

One of the few opportunities that Democrats can gain leverage over this administration is to show the American people that we will stand up and fight for them.

Later in the evening, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-NY, and his top deputies released a statement saying the GOP bill will “unleash havoc on everyday Americans, giving Donald Trump and Elon Musk even more power to continue dismantling the federal government.”

The caucus is willing to vote for a four week continuing resolution that brings parties back to the negotiating table, according to Jeffries, along with Clark and the caucus chair.

The Senate has approved a short-term spending bill to keep the government open through the end of September. The measure was approved on a party line, but the earlier vote exposed deep divisions among Democrats.

The bill includes a small increase in defense spending and about $13 billion in cuts to non-defense programs. The bill was in line with GOP promises. Democrats characterized the bill as a “blank check” to President Donald Trump because the bill makes no attempt to rein in the administration’s ongoing efforts to cut spending previously approved by Congress.

“This president has put us in a position where, in either direction lots of people’s constituents are gonna get hurt, and hurt badly,” said Heinrich, who voted against advancing the bill. You have to confront a bully if you want to be taken seriously. I don’t plan on voting for this CR. The president is very comfortable with the pain that either way will create and I fully respect people who come to a different conclusion.

Schumer also said that Democrats were given a choice between two bad options, but he determined that keeping the government open would “minimize the harms to the American people.”

“As bad as passing the CR is, allowing Donald Trump to take even more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday.

Reply to Schumer’s Backlash and a Democrat’s Commitment on the Corrupt Future of the U.S. Senate

There was a backlash to Schumer’s decision, and now there is a feeling of frustration about his future. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., was asked directly about whether Democrats need a new leader in the Senate. He tried to go, but he failed.

The freshman senator from Arizona didn’t respond when asked by reporters. He said that a postmortem would help unify the party.

As the Republicans work to pass a reconciliation bill, Coons believes that House and Senate democrats can band together in opposition to the Trump agenda.