Lawmakers came back from their lengthy August recess this week. They have until the end of the month to fund the government for the next fiscal year and avoid a government shutdown.
But there’s an elephant in the room as negotiations get underway: how do you do the work of legislating when the executive branch refuses to spend federal funds in the way that Congress allocates them? It’s a question that has hung over the 119th Congress since Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began its rampage through the federal government earlier this year — and one that Democrats will have to contend with as their Republican colleagues repeatedly cede their power of the purse to the Trump White House.
With just a little over three weeks remaining in the fiscal year, a short-term continuing resolution is looking more and more like the most realistic option for Republicans, who have the majority in both chambers, to avoid a shutdown. Top Republican appropriators, committee chairs Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), indicated this week that they want to pass a short-term CR.
In the Senate, legislation to fund the government is subject to the filibuster and requires 60 votes. That means Republican leadership will need to convince a handful of Democrats to support their measure to fund the government and avert a shutdown (even though they’re already trying to
place the blame
on their Democratic colleagues for the potential, future failure to arrive at a deal).
A push for a win on health care in exchange for funding votes
Democrats are seemingly leaning into an ask that would protect health care for Americans — specifically the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits that are set to expire at the end of 2025 — in exchange for their votes. It appears that Democrats are pushing to, at the very least, delay their expiration.
This all comes as the Trump White House and Russ Vought’s Office of Management and Budget
continue to impound
congressionally authorized funds and engage in
illegal pocket rescission schemes
.
“The thing that is on everyone’s mind back home is that their premiums are about to go up,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters on Thursday. “They are not tracking a lot of what we work on, but they are now starting to realize that their health care expenses are going to skyrocket almost immediately if Congress doesn’t act.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking member for the Senate Appropriations Committee,
came out in support of a short-term CR this week
, as long as it’s a bipartisan effort.
“The CR agreement needs to reflect Democratic values and principles, and it needs to be a real bipartisan compromise.” The Washington Democrat said, adding, if Republicans “try and jam through a partisan CR without any input from Democratic members of Congress, and they suddenly find they don’t have the votes they need from our caucus to fund the government, well then, that is a Republican shutdown.”
Murray also called on Republicans to work with Democrats “to stop the health care premiums from skyrocketing this fall.” The enhanced Obamacare subsidies were passed as part of the American Rescue Plan Act under President Biden and were extended through 2025 when Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Republican leadership has
appeared reluctant
to extend them.
Schatz agreed with Murray, saying that “a prerequisite to a bipartisan product is you have to have both parties sitting down and working with the bill.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) went even further.
“They want to get a budget through then they need some Democratic votes. And so far, I haven’t heard them come to the Democrats and say, here’s what we’re willing to offer. They seem to want to just strong-arm. They want my vote, then I want to see them roll back those health care cuts,” Warren said at the Senate basement on Thursday referring to the cuts in the “Big Beautiful” Bill.
“My job here is to help families reduce their costs,” she told TPM. “The Republicans are increasing health care costs, taking away health care from millions of Americans, and we, Democrats need to say, ‘No, we can’t do that.’”
Impoundments and pocket rescissions loom over funding talks
As Democrats are hoping to get a win on the health care side by potentially supporting a short-term CR, many are indicating they still want to continue the appropriations process to fund the government and stay away from a long-term CR.
“I’m an appropriator. I want us to fund the government. I want us to do our job,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a member of the Appropriations Committee, told TPM on Thursday. “Article One of the Constitution says we have the power of the purse. In many ways, it’s the most important power Congress has.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said “a long-term CR reflecting no consultation with Democrats, something that doesn’t fix this health care damage that Virginians are already seeing in terms of predictive premium increases, something that gives the president the continued freehand for him to just choose to rewrite the budget whenever he wants” would all be red flags for him in the funding talks,
according to NOTUS
.
As Kaine hints at, looming over the appropriations process and funding the government is the question: Will the Trump White House and the OMB actually spend congressionally appropriated funds the way they are appropriated?
The White House and OMB have already been lawlessly impounding funds, according to several decisions from the Government Accountability Office. And last week, they sent an illegal “pocket rescissions” request over to Congress, triggering staunch criticism even from some Republicans.
“Trump and Vought keep sending over rescissions — both the most recent pocket rescission and a larger rescission,” Coons told TPM. “If Republicans in the Senate are saying they’re not going to support rescissions, they’re going to work across the aisle and we’re gonna finish appropriating. That’d be great.”
So far Democrats haven’t publicly laid out a demand that might attempt to mandate an end to the administration’s lawless funding freezes, impoundments and pocket rescissions request in exchange for helping Republicans avoid a shutdown. But the White House’s undermining of Congress’ power of the purse looms over the government funding process.
“The partisan recessions undermine trust and undermine the bipartisan appropriations process,” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told reporters in front of the Senate chamber Thursday.
Ossoff added that “we should be working towards a bipartisan outcome” and that “it’ll be a tough, tough conversation with our Republican colleagues.”
“We want to make sure that there’s a budget agreement that is not a one-way street, that meets the country’s priorities,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told reporters. “And where we can be assured that when we pass it, it will be actually implemented, rather than the president undermining it after it’s signed.”
Experts warn that even though it’s important that Democrats fight for Americans’ health care, protecting the Constitution and the legislative branch’s power of the purse is equally crucial.
“It’s obviously crucial to make sure that the enhanced premium tax credits don’t expire,” Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, told TPM. “But the whole point of appropriations is funding the government. The whole point of funding the government is delivering to the American people. And if the only victory that you are securing is not letting these enhanced premium tax credits expire, you are unfortunately doing nothing to prevent the illegal impoundments and the legal rescissions from continuing.”
“The whole thing about these government funding deals is they have to be bipartisan to be created,” Kogan added. “If they have to be bipartisan creation but then you can tweak them on a partisan basis or a unilateral basis through impoundment, then all the funding that you think you have secured … it’s not actually guaranteed.”
When asked if the recent pocket rescissions request — and the fact that some Republicans are claiming that Vought’s maneuver is legal — will become a sticking point in the ongoing negotiations, Schatz told TPM: “I think it’s a point of friction, but I’m not prepared to articulate any red lines to you.”
This story
originally appeared on
Talking Points Memo
.
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