Senators are set to take a key vote on Tuesday that could determine the outcome of government funding in the coming months and whether a partial government shutdown is on the horizon. But the vote on appropriations bills – normally a collegial process – is turning acrimonious, as some Democrats feel burned by how Republicans worked to pass spending cuts.
Lawmakers in the upper chamber will vote on their first tranche of appropriations bills for this fiscal year, but whether the typically popular and bipartisan measures pass remains unclear as Senate Democrats seem prepared to derail the process in protest of recent partisan moves by Republicans – moves they say have eaten away at the trust that binds the appropriations process.
Senate Republicans last week passed President Donald Trump’s $9 billion clawback package that slashes funding from foreign aid programs and public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS.
That came after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned that advancing the bill could have consequences for the typically bipartisan government funding process in the upper chamber. Meanwhile, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said that more rescissions would be on the way.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., noted that any consideration of spending bills would require ‘cooperation’ from Democrats, and that the forthcoming vote would give Republicans a glimpse of where their colleagues stood on funding the government ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline.
‘It was deeply disappointing to hear the Democrat leader threaten to shut down the government if Republicans dared to pass legislation to trim just one-tenth of 1% of the federal budget,’ Thune said.
Schumer scoffed at Thune calling for more bipartisanship in appropriations and accused Thune of ‘talking out of both sides of his mouth.’
‘We will see how the floor process evolves here on the floor given Republicans’ recent actions undermining bipartisan appropriations,’ he said. ‘Nothing is guaranteed.’
Among the bills that could be considered are spending bills that fund military construction and the VA, agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, and the legislative branch. The bills will need at least 60 votes to blow through the first procedural hurdle in the Senate.
Senate Democrats are set to meet Tuesday afternoon ahead of the vote to determine whether they’ll support the expected bill package.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that he and his colleagues had yet to receive guidance from Democratic leadership, but noted that the threat of Democratic resistance was a problem of the GOP’s own making. He said that the GOP had ‘an obligation to give Democrats answers to how…they can guarantee that our votes mean anything.’
‘I think Republicans have created a crisis, and they need to figure out how to solve it,’ the Connecticut Democrat said. ‘We can’t do appropriations bills with this escalating promise from the administration to cancel all Democratic spending as soon as we vote for it.’
Sen. Mike Rounds, also a member of the spending panel, hoped that lawmakers could make the appropriations process work this year, but acknowledged that Democratic resistance could lead Congress to once again turn to another government funding extension, known as a continuing resolution.
He contended that if Democrats were willing to give up on a bipartisan process it would only be to the advantage of the Trump administration.
‘So, part of it is, do we actually want an appropriations process,’ he said.