WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, blasted Senate Democrats for voting again Friday to defeat a short-term deal offered by House and Senate Republicans that would reopen the federal government.
Senate Democrats have voted four times to block the GOP's stopgap spending measure, which is called a continuing resolution, or CR.
Two of those votes came ahead of the Oct. 1 start of the new fiscal year — votes that could have averted the shutdown. And a pair of votes on the CR to reopen the government have since failed, the latest Friday, as Senate Democrats continue to demand concessions in exchange for their votes.
Three days into the federal government shutdown, Republicans and Democrats seem far from any deals to end it.
When lawmakers fail to agree on full-year appropriations measures by Oct. 1 each year, emergency CRs are commonly used to keep the government open and buy time for continued talks. In this case, though, no deal has been reached on a CR and neither side shows any signs of budging.
In a statement Friday, Hageman said she helped the House pass the GOP's CR on Sept. 19. She noted U.S. Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso and fellow Wyoming Republican U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis have since voted for the measure.
“Wyoming’s congressional delegation chose to govern rather than engage in political blackmail, as both Sens. Barrasso and Lummis supported all four votes in the Senate, and I in the House," Hageman said in a statement Friday. "Now our state, which shoulders an unfair federal burden to begin with, is being injured by Senate Democrats.”
Hageman and other Republicans say Democrats want a total of $1.5 trillion in new spending as a condition of reopening the government.
Health Care
Senate Democrats have introduced a CR of their own that has no chance of passing, but they are using it to try to force Republicans to the negotiating table.
The Democrats' CR calls for enormous spending hikes, including the extension of Obamacare enhanced tax credits along with partial repeals of laws this year that had cut spending, most notably in Medicaid.
Democrats warn of looming, steep hikes in health insurance premiums, due in part to soon-to-expire Obamacare enhanced tax credits, barring an extension. They were passed in 2021 as part of a sprawling COVID-19 spending package.
Barrasso on the Senate floor Friday called the credits “Biden’s bonus COVID payments" and put the price tag for extending them at $350 billion.
The credits were extended in 2022 legislation to last until the end of this year. Barrasso said they were always meant to be temporary, saying Friday that, “COVID is clearly over."
But Democrats are insisting on the extensions as well as restoration of Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, among other demands.
“The government remains closed because President Donald Trump and Republicans insist on raising Americans’ health insurance premiums and kicking millions off their insurance, sending premiums skyrocketing," U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Friday.
'Trump 2028'
Trump on Monday met with Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York for talks on averting the shutdown. The talks went nowhere, and Senate Republican Leader John Thune said Friday that Republicans are not negotiating.
After the Monday meeting in the Oval Office, Trump began trolling Schumer and Jeffries with memes on social media.
The first memes featured Mariachi music and Jeffries in a sombrero with a big mustache. A later meme, posted Thursday, shows the president throwing a "Trump 2028" red ballcap onto the head of Jeffries in the Oval Office, then pointing at Jeffries and laughing.
Vote Threshold Key
The laws that Senate Democrats want to partially repeal — including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — had only required simple-majority votes in the Senate, and no Democrats were on board.
Now, Senate Democrats have leverage because appropriations legislation, including CRs, require a supermajority of 60 votes.
Senate Republicans need eight Democrats to agree to any deal, and so far only three have broken ranks to side with the GOP on a seven-week extension of current funding with no policy changes.
If the Senate GOP was unified, they would need seven Democrats to break ranks instead of eight. But Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — a hard-core fiscal conservative — has voted against the GOP's CR because he objects to even the current spending levels that the measure calls for extending.
The lawmakers to cross the aisle to the GOP side are U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — both Democrats — plus U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.
Barrasso predicted Wednesday that the Democratic defections would continue, but in two later votes on the GOP's CR, that did not happen.
The Senate will not meet again until Monday afternoon.
Trump Punishing Blue States
The Trump administration is using the shutdown to inflict pain on blue states, including planned firings of federal workers in the Washington, D.C., area that includes the sprawling Virginia and Maryland suburbs.
The region has already been hit by job cuts earlier this year made by the Department of Government Efficiency, then led by billionaire Elon Musk.
In a government shutdown, most federal workers are furloughed or required to work without pay until the shutdown ends, at which time they get back pay. But Trump has vowed to use this shutdown to look for permanent reductions.
About 750,000 federal workers are furloughed now.
The administration is punishing blue areas in other ways besides workforce cuts.
The Department of Energy on Thursday announced it was cutting nearly $8 billion in funding for green energy projects in 16 states — all of which went for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
Those cuts were forecast in an X post the day before by Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, calling the projects part of a "Green New Scam."
Lummis reposted that to her account, adding: "Great!"
Later, Trump said he would freeze $18 billion for a New York City area rail tunnel project and $2 billion for Chicago's main public transit system.
Sean Barry can be reached at sean@cowboystatedaily.com.
