WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats refused to end the government shutdown Wednesday, blocking a House-passed stopgap spending bill for the second time in fewer than 24 hours — as federal agencies prepare to start laying off as many as 750,000 employees daily.
The Senate voted 55-45 to end debate on the continuing resolution — five votes short of the 60 needed to clear the legislative filibuster — with Democrats Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, as well as independent Angus King of Maine voting “yea.”
All but one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, also voted for the bill.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and other Democrats had objected to the so-called “clean” continuing resolution because it failed to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of this year.
Republicans leaders in Congress have maintained that the subsidies can be considered separately, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-La.) calling for Dems to join their bill and fund the government at current levels until Nov. 21.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Johnson noted that “nearly half of our civilian workforce” is being “sent home” amid the shutdown.
“Our troops and our Border Patrol agents will have to go to work, but they’ll be working without pay. Food assistance, veterans’ benefits, and vital support for women and children are all coming to a halt,” the speaker added.
“Our simple, clean, 24-page bipartisan continued resolution, the same one that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats voted for just a few months back in March … they rejected it, and they demanded something else,” he said of Democrats’ alternative bill text. “They wanted us to add over $1.5 trillion in new federal spending, paid for of course, by hardworking American taxpayers, simply for funding the government at current Biden spending levels.”
As many as 750,000 federal employees are expected to be furloughed each day, according to estimates provided by the Congressional Budget Office — and those furloughs could soon become permanent firings.
“We’re not targeting federal agencies based on politics,” Vice President JD Vance said at a White House press briefing Wednesday. “We’re targeting the people’s government, so that as much as possible of the essential services can continue to function.”
White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought last week told agencies to develop Reduction in Force (RIF) plans for any program not statutorily required during a shutdown.
“Once fiscal year 2026 appropriations are enacted, agencies should revise their RIFs as needed to retain the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions,” Vought wrote in a memo.
On a phone call with House Republicans Wednesday, Vought promised that the RIF plans would start taking effect in the next 48 hours, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions.
“This government shutdown is the result of hardball politics driven by the demands far-left groups are making for Democratic Party leaders to put on a show of their opposition to President Trump,” Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) said in a statement Wednesday.
“The shutdown is hurting Americans and our economy, and the irony is it has only handed more power to the president,” added Golden, the only House Democrat to vote for the funding bill.
“There’s room and time to negotiate. But normal policy disagreements are no reason to subject our constituents to the continued harm of this shutdown.”
At the White House, Vance suggested that Schumer opposed the stopgap bill because he was “terrified he’s going to get a [2028] primary challenge from [Rep.] Alexandria Ocasio Cortez [D-NY].”
“I can’t predict what congressional Democrats are going to do,” he added, “but I actually don’t think it’s going to be that long of a shutdown.”
The White House also posted the text of Democrats’ alternative funding bill on X, pointing out that it would reverse a ban on providing health care benefits for illegal aliens enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act .
“What the Democrats are engaging in is a sleight of hand. They’re saying, ‘No, no, those weren’t illegal aliens who are getting health care benefits,’ even though everybody knows they were in the country illegally,” Vance protested.
President Trump had trolled Schumer on the eve of the funding vote by posting an AI-generated video of the Senate Democratic leader pushing to give “illegal aliens free healthcare” as part of an effort to court “new voters” for their party.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was depicted wearing a sombrero with a traditional Mexican folk song playing in the background during the 35-second video posted Monday night.
“The president’s joking, and we’re having a good time,” Vance said Wednesday. “You can negotiate in good faith, while also poking a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities of the Democrats’ positions.
“And even, you know, poking some some fun at the absurdity of the Democrats themselves,” he added. “I mean, I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now, I make this solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop.”
Jeffries responded to reporters later Wednesday: “The president has been engaging in irresponsible and unserious behavior, demonstrating that all along, Republicans wanted to shut the government down.”
The White House and other right-wing X accounts have also been circulating videos online of Democrats discussing candidly the potential for illegal immigrants to fraudulently obtain federal benefits — decades earlier.
“When they come here, they can get jobs, get benefits against the law — because of fraud,” then-Rep. Schumer said in a 1996 House floor speech.
On the Senate floor Wednesday, Schumer said, “They say, oh, what they’re fighting to do is prevent, what they say, illegal immigrants, from getting federal health care dollars — that is a damn lie.”
The New York Democrat also claimed: “Not one dollar of Medicare, Medicaid or [ObamaCare] is allowed to go to undocumented immigrants.”
Nearly half of Democrats (43%) and 65% of all registered voters are opposed to a government shutdown, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted in late September, though that survey shows a plurality still blame Trump and Republicans for the funding fight.
