Vance lays out where government shutdown negotiations stand

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

With the federal government officially shut down, the Trump administration is prepared to “take extraordinary steps” to maintain essential functions as congressional negotiations continue, Vice President J.D. Vance said Wednesday.

Republican and Democratic leaders are currently at an impasse after the Senate once again failed to pass either of the dueling Continuing Resolutions to extend federal funding. Democrats are refusing to provide the votes for Republicans’ clean CR to pass and reopen the government unless the administration makes concessions on certain health care policies.

In a White House press briefing Wednesday afternoon, Vance told reporters that Republicans are “willing to have that conversation” on how to fix American health care, but that “we’ve got to reopen the government first.”

“You don’t have policy disagreements that serve as the basis for a government shutdown,” Vance said, echoing comments from other Republican leaders.

So far, the only senators who have voted for both government funding bills are Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Angus King, I-Maine, (who caucuses with Democrats). Republicans still need to gain five more non-Republican votes for their CR to pass when the Senate votes again Friday.

Rather than haggle with Democratic leaders over whether or not to change the text of the bill to include healthcare policy, flipping the votes of five rank-and-file Democrats is “really where we’re going to focus,” Vance said.

The last time the government ran out of funds was on Dec. 22, 2018, and that shutdown lasted until Jan. 25, 2019, the longest in U.S. history.

Vance said his “guess” is that it won’t last too long this time around, but he also warned that the federal government will soon have to make “painful” staff furloughs if the shutdown drags on.

“We haven’t made any final decisions about what we’re going to do with certain workers,” Vance clarified, after a reporter referenced Trump’s desire to eliminate some federal positions. “What we’re saying is we might have to take extraordinary steps – especially the longer this goes on – we’re going to have to take extraordinary measures to ensure the peoples’ government operates.”

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that roughly 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed each day during the shutdown, resulting in potentially $400 million in compensation costs each day.