Senate Democrats on Tuesday refused to pass a stopgap bill that would keep the government running through November, heading the federal government toward a midnight shutdown.
Two Senate votes set the stage for a shutdown. A House-passed Republican proposal without Democrats’ funding wish list failed 55-45, according to CBS. Sixty votes were needed for passage.
🚨 Democrats just voted to shut down the government — but with multiple of them voting with Republicans to keep government open, Democrats are crumbling before the shutdown even begins. pic.twitter.com/nPnJ7id2ak
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 30, 2025
Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrsts, broke ranks to support the bill. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky opposed it.
A Democrat-led proposal that would have funded the government with their spending priorities was defeated in a 47-53 party-line vote.
Republicans had proposed a stopgap bill that would keep government running through Nov. 21. In rejecting that, Democrats insisted that, at a minimum, health care subsidies that can be used by illegal immigrants be included in any spending bill. The GOP and the White House have rejected that spending.
Even before the federal government’s authority to spend ran out at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development recognized it as a fait accompli.
“The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people,” read the message on HUD’s home page.
Do you support shutting down the federal government when the country runs out of money?
Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits, military operations, law enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and air traffic control would continue to be funded no matter what, according to Politico.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming noted that the subsidies Republicans do not want to extend “were set up as temporary and were supposed to end when Covid ended, and Covid has ended,” according to the BBC.
Democrats are willing to shutdown the government in order to fund their far-left wish list. Some of these demands include:
❌ FREE healthcare for illegal immigrants
❌ $500 million in handouts to the liberal media
❌ A $50 billion cut to rural hospital funding
❌ Billions in DEI… pic.twitter.com/Ku80JK3J83— Iowa GOP (@IowaGOP) September 30, 2025
Noting that Democrats supported what are known as continuing resolutions without fail during the Biden administration, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there was no reason for the Democrats’ refusal to do so now, according to CBS.
“Democrats have a choice to make. They can shut down the government and subject the American people to all the problems that come with a shutdown, many of which, as I’ve said, they’ve enumerated in the countless quotes they’ve made in the past,” Thune said.
“The Democrat leader and his colleagues have the same leverage on Nov. 21. This is a short-term CR. This is what we do all the time around here,” Thune said.
“We have until the end of the year to fix the ACA credit issue, and we’re happy, as I said yesterday and I’ve said on multiple occasions, to sit down with you to do that,” he said.
President Donald Trump said Democrats will wish they had cut a deal, according to CBS.
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump said.
Trump said Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “can trim the budget to a level that you couldn’t do any other way.”
“Because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits, we can cut large numbers of people out, we don’t want to do that, but we don’t want fraud, waste and abuse,” Trump said.
Senate Democrats are threatening to disrupt millions of American lives by forcing us into a government shutdown, all over a clean and straightforward bipartisan bill that they supported just six months ago.
☎️Call your Democrat Senators. Urge them to keep the government open. https://t.co/zFO0RApGdW— Keri D. Ingraham (@KeriDIngraham) September 30, 2025
According to a memo Politico posted that was sent to federal departments, federal executives are being urged to use the shutdown as a chance to permanently eliminate jobs where funding for them no longer exists, cannot be supported under other funding, or are “not consistent” with the policies of the president.
As noted by ABC, the federal government shut down for 35 days beginning in December 2018 during Trump’s first term.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
