Senate Democrats rejected for the 10th time Thursday a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits.
The vote failed Thursday morning on a 51-45 vote, well short of the 60 needed to advance with the Senate’s filibuster rules.
The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress, underscoring how intractable the situation has become. It has been at times the only item on the agenda for the Senate floor, while House Republicans have left Washington altogether. The standoff has lasted over two weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday and Congress essentially paralyzed.
Of course media and liberals overlook the fact that the government being “shut down” is part of the kabuki theater. There is nothing stopping the government being funded at previous levels unless a consensus was agreed to for the current year. It only takes a simple majority to make that change. The Dems could have done that during Obama, and also in 2020. But they didn’t because a shut-down leading to lots of employee attrition and smaller government benefits the capitalists.