With just days left before a crucial government funding deadline, Congress remains locked in a bitter impasse over short-term spending bills and the future of health care for millions of Americans. As the September 30, 2025, cutoff looms, both the Senate and the House have seen dramatic votes, fiery speeches, and deepening partisan trenches—leaving federal workers, agencies, and ordinary citizens bracing for a possible government shutdown.
On Friday, September 19, 2025, Senate Republicans voted down a Democratic proposal aimed at funding the government for one month and permanently extending health care premium subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end. According to reporting by Nexstar Media Inc., the plan, introduced by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), would have restored nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid spending cuts and allocated almost $200 million to enhance security for members of Congress. The proposal, however, failed to clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, falling short in a 47-45 vote.
The stakes could hardly be higher. If Congress does not pass a continuing resolution in the next 11 days, government funding will expire on September 30. Federal departments and agencies would then be forced to curtail operations and furlough workers, a scenario that’s all too familiar in recent years.
Later that same Friday, the Senate was scheduled to consider a stopgap funding measure passed by the House earlier in the day. That House bill, which squeaked through on a 217-212 vote—with only one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, supporting it—would keep the government running through November 21. It also included $88 million in additional security funds for Congress, the courts, and the executive branch, a response to the recent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Notably, the bill would allow Washington, D.C., to resume spending $1 billion in its own local funds, which Congress had blocked in March.
But the Senate proved just as divided as the House. Senate Democrats blocked the Republican stopgap in a 44-48 vote, with Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania the only Democrat to break ranks and support it. On the Republican side, Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against their party’s measure. The deadlock sent both chambers into a scheduled recess for Rosh Hashanah, with the Senate expected back just before the funding deadline and the House not due to return until October 1. House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled that Republicans might remain in their districts through the end of September, effectively daring Senate Democrats to accept the House-passed measure or take the blame for a shutdown.
So what’s at the heart of this standoff? Republicans describe their stopgap as a “clean” measure that maintains current funding levels and buys time for longer-term negotiations. Yet Democrats argue that “clean” is a misnomer, pointing out that those funding levels reflect cuts enacted in the GOP’s earlier tax-and-spending package, known as the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which passed earlier this year at President Trump’s urging.
Democrats countered with their own proposal: a shorter extension through October 31 that would permanently extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, reverse hundreds of billions in Medicaid cuts, restore foreign aid and public broadcasting money clawed back by the Trump administration, and provide $326 million for heightened security of public officials—almost four times what Republicans had proposed.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, allowing the ACA credits to lapse would result in around 4 million people losing coverage starting in 2026 and would increase deficits by nearly $350 billion over the next decade. Democrats, including Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have repeatedly asked GOP leaders to meet for negotiations, but have been rebuffed. Schumer emphasized the urgency, telling reporters, “We’ll sit down and negotiate if they will sit down and negotiate, we don’t have a red line, but we know we have to help the American people.”
Republicans, for their part, have dismissed the Democratic proposal as unrealistic and too costly. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) called it a “fundamentally unserious proposal designed to appease Democrats’ liberal base.” On the Senate floor, Thune argued, “It has zero chance of making it through Congress, and they know that.” Thune said Republicans would instead support the House-passed measure, which he characterized as straightforward and uncontroversial. “The kind of clean CR [continuing resolution] Republicans have put forward used to be something Democrats embraced. In fact, Democrats voted in favor of clean CR’s no fewer than 13 times during the Biden administration,” he added. Thune did express some willingness to negotiate on the ACA subsidies, saying lawmakers should “comb through the health insurance subsidy program to root out waste, fraud and abuse and apply any savings from cost-saving reforms to the extension of the subsidies.” But he insisted there wasn’t enough time to reach a deal before the September 30 deadline.
Democratic leaders, still smarting from criticism after crossing party lines to back a Republican stopgap six months earlier, are determined not to repeat what many progressives saw as capitulation. “This is our chance to restore health care for millions of people in this country,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts declared on the Senate floor. “We are not going to be rolled again.”
President Donald Trump, speaking from the Oval Office late Friday, disparaged Democrats for being willing to force a shutdown "if they don't get everything that they want." He suggested that while GOP leaders would "continue to talk to the Democrats," a shutdown was still very much on the table: "I think you could very well end up with a closed country for a period of time." Senate Republicans believe they have the political upper hand, citing Schumer’s own past warnings against shutdowns. “What we’re seeing today from the Minority Leader is exactly what he once condemned,” said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. “He is holding the American people hostage.” Democrats, on the other hand, insist that public sentiment is on their side, especially on health care, and that Republicans are following Trump’s directive to avoid meaningful negotiations. “Republicans cannot expect that another take it or leave it extension of government funding that fails to address health care costs is going to cut it for the American people,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, adding pointedly, “Donald Trump does not want to talk. He wants a shutdown. You have to have two parties to pass a bill.”
Back in the House, the health care debate has taken on a personal tone. Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, lambasted the Republican continuing resolution, claiming it would worsen a health care crisis created by GOP policies and lead to hospital closures. He warned that the new law would cut health care funding and threaten coverage for 15 million Americans. “Failure to address the health care crisis in the spending bill would result in soaring premiums and loss of coverage for millions,” Pallone said, calling the situation an “outrage.”
Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski (IL-13) echoed these concerns after voting against the Republican resolution. “If Republicans wanted Democrats to join them in passing a government funding package, they needed to put forward measures that would stop their manufactured healthcare crisis,” she said in a statement. Budzinski argued that Republicans had the chance to extend ACA tax credits and prevent Medicaid cuts that threaten coverage and nursing home closures in Illinois, but “refused.” As a result, she and her Democratic colleagues “refused to back legislation that ignores this crisis, slashes healthcare, drives up costs, and leaves working families behind.”
With both sides dug in and the clock ticking, the nation faces the very real prospect of a government shutdown—one that could have swift and severe consequences for millions. Whether Congress can bridge its divides in time remains the question on everyone’s mind as the deadline draws near.
