Senate Democrats are now facing a hard decision after the House narrowly passed a budget to fund the federal government for the rest of this fiscal year.
The budget passed the House 217-213 on Tuesday, with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky the only Republican opposed and Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine the only Democrat supporting the bill, according to the Washington Times.
Because the bill makes minimal changes to the budget currently funding the federal government, it’s being labeled as a continuing resolution.
The current stopgap bill funding the federal government expires Friday, which means if the Senate does not approve what the House passed, the federal government is likely to shut down.
Massie said the lack of reform was the reason he voted against the bill, which trimmed domestic spending to provide an increase in defense spending.
“I’m not voting for the Continuing Resolution budget (cut-copy-paste omnibus) this week. Why would I vote to continue the waste fraud and abuse DOGE has found? We were told the CR in December would get us to March when we would fight. Here we are in March, punting again! WTFO,” Massie posted on X.
“It amazes me that my colleagues and many of the public fall for the lie that we will fight another day,” he wrote in another post on X.
Having cleared the House, the bill goes to the Senate, where 60 votes are needed for passage.
Republicans have 53 seats, but can only count on 52 votes because Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has said he will oppose the bill for a similar reason to Massie’s objections — that not enough cuts were made in spending, according to The Hill.
Was passing the CR right the thing to do?
That means eight Democrats must support the bill, or the federal government will shut down. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has said that faced between passing a bill he might not like and shutting down the government, the choice is clear.
“I’ve been very clear: I’m not going [to] vote or withhold my vote that’s going to shut down the government,” Fetterman said.
“For me, if the Democrats think that they want to burn the village down to save it, that’s terrible optics and that’s going to have serious impacts for millions and millions of people,” he said. “I’m never going to vote for that kind of chaos.”
The Hill report indicated that Democrats were likely to approve the bill rather than be blamed for shutting down the government, but it also implied, Democrats were still hashing out their position.
Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, outlined the choice, according to ABC.
“There are really only two options: One is vote for a pretty bad CR. Or the other is to vote for a potentially even worse shutdown,” he said. “So it’s a very tough choice.”
“A shutdown is uncharted territory when you’ve got an administration that at least in some ways probably would welcome a shutdown because that would give the president almost unlimited power: deciding who is essential who is not unessential, folding up agencies,” King said. “So that is the dilemma that is being discussed.”
“They made a bunch of changes, I want to see what they’re changing,” Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado said.
“I’m not happy. … It’s one of those things once we go through it, it’s going to feel like a bad dream. I’ve got to go through it,” he said.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
