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A sign advising that the Capitol Visitors Center in the U.S. Capitol is closed, in Washington, D.C. (Jennifer Shutt\/States Newsroom).<\/p>\n
This report has been updated.<\/em><\/p>\n WASHINGTON \u2014 Congress has just one week to break the stalemate and fund the government before active duty military members miss their first paycheck of the shutdown.\u00a0<\/p>\n That would be followed later in the month by absent wages for federal civilian employees and the staffers who work for lawmakers \u2014 benchmarks that would traditionally increase pressure on Democrats and Republicans to negotiate a deal.<\/p>\n But both sides remained dug in Wednesday, as the Senate failed to pass Republicans\u2019 short-term government funding bill for the sixth time and Democrats were unable to get the support needed to advance their counterproposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 54-45 vote on the GOP bill and the 47-52 vote on Democrats\u2019 legislation didn\u2019t reach the 60 votes needed to advance under Senate rules.<\/p>\n Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, as well as Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance their multi-week funding bill. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.<\/p>\n The shutdown began on Oct. 1, the start of the federal government\u2019s 2026 fiscal year.<\/p>\n Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., rejected the idea of voting on a stand-alone bill to provide paychecks to active duty military members during the shutdown, saying that if Democrats wanted to ensure salaries for federal workers, they should vote to advance the stopgap spending bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey live with that vote. They made that decision. The House is done,\u201d Johnson said at a morning press conference. \u201cThe ball is now in the Senate\u2019s court. It does us no good to be here dithering on show votes. We did it. We sent the product over.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump, speaking from the White House later in the afternoon, broke with GOP leaders in Congress on passing a stand-alone bill to provide pay for military members during the shutdown.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, that probably will happen. We don\u2019t have to worry about it yet. That\u2019s a long time,\u201d Trump said. \u201cYou know what one week is for me? An eternity. One week for me is a long time. We\u2019ll take care of it. Our military is always going to be taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson also appeared to fully reject\u00a0an idea floated<\/a> by the Trump administration not to provide back pay for furloughed federal employees, which is required by a 2019 law.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my understanding that the law is that they would be paid. There is some other legal analysis that\u2019s floating around. I haven\u2019t yet had time to dig into and read that,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cBut it has always been the case, it is tradition and I think it is statutory law that federal employees be paid. And that\u2019s my position. I think they should be.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump muddied the waters on that issue during his afternoon appearance, blaming Democrats for how his administration plans to handle back pay for furloughed federal workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to see. Most of them are going to get back pay and we\u2019re going to try to make sure of that,\u201d Trump said. \u201cBut some of them are being hurt very badly by the Democrats and they therefore won\u2019t qualify.\u201d<\/p>\n The shutdown will likely only end after congressional leaders begin talking with each other about core policy issues, including how to address enhanced tax credits for people who buy their own health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. The credits are set to expire at the end of the year, spurring huge increases in health insurance costs.<\/p>\n Democrats say a deal must be reached before they\u2019ll vote to advance the GOP stopgap spending bill that would fund the government through Nov. 21. Republican leaders maintain they won\u2019t negotiate until after Democrats vote to open the government.<\/p>\n Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he and other GOP lawmakers are willing to talk with Democrats about the tax credits, but only after the government reopens.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey have other issues that they want to bring up, which I said before we\u2019re happy to discuss, and yes, there are some things that I think there\u2019s interest on both sides in trying to address when it comes to health care in this country,\u201d Thune said. \u201cBut you can\u2019t take the federal government hostage and expect to have a reasonable conversation on those issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Thune said the stopgap funding bill is needed to give both chambers more time to work out a final agreement on the dozen full-year government funding bills, which were supposed to become law by the start of the fiscal year.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat this does is provide a short-term extension in order for all that to happen,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s all that we\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans are divided on health care issues and want to avoid a public debate over the Affordable Care Act tax credits.\u00a0<\/p>\n Schumer then read part of\u00a0a social media post<\/a> by Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in which she said she was \u201cabsolutely disgusted\u201d that health premiums will double by the end of the year without action.<\/p>\n \u201cMore Republicans should listen to her because, on this issue, she\u2019s right on the money,\u201d Schumer said. \u201cMeanwhile, Democrats\u2019 position hasn\u2019t changed. We urge our Republican colleagues to join us in a serious negotiation to reopen the government and extend ACA premiums.\u201d<\/p>\n The shutdown\u2019s ramifications will continue to get worse the longer lawmakers remain intransigent, especially given President Donald Trump\u2019s efforts to differentiate this funding lapse from those in the past.<\/p>\n Trump has said he\u2019ll\u00a0lay off federal workers<\/a> by the thousands,\u00a0cancel funding<\/a> approved by Congress for projects in Democratic regions of the country and\u00a0may not provide<\/a> back pay for the hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees.<\/p>\n Trump and administration officials have been vague about when and how they\u2019d implement layoffs, but a federal judge hearing arguments in a suit brought by a federal employee labor union has ordered government attorneys to file a brief later this week detailing its plans and its timeline.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Northern District of California Judge Susan Illston has given the Trump administration until the end of Friday to share details of any planned or in-progress Reduction in Force plans, \u201cincluding the earliest date that those RIF notices will go out.\u201d<\/p>\n Illston, who was nominated by former President Bill Clinton, also told the Trump administration to detail what agencies anticipate implementing layoffs and how many employees that would impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n Illston set Oct. 16 for oral arguments between the American Federation of Government Employees and federal government attorneys over AFGE\u2019s request for a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from implementing layoffs during the shutdown.<\/p>\n Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, part of a bipartisan group that has begun informal talks, said during a brief interview Wednesday that the government must reopen before real steps can be taken on the ACA tax credits.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think the leadership has made very, very clear that the way to open up the government is, let\u2019s pass a bill that will allow us to open up the government, and then there\u2019s a lot of good conversations that can go on,\u201d Murkowski said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean that we wait until then to start conversations, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing. We\u2019re talking but we\u2019re talking outside of the range of your microphones.\u201d<\/p>\n She said, \u201cThere are not a lot of guarantees around this place, are there?\u201d when asked by a reporter whether Republicans could provide Democrats with assurances on floor votes on ACA tax credit extensions if they vote for the stopgap spending bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis said he expects the shutdown to last for at least a couple more weeks and urged Democratic senators to vote to reopen the government.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGo take a look at the list of Democrats who are either not running for reelection or not up until \u201828 or \u201830,\u201d Tillis said. \u201cThere are plenty of them to walk the plank like I have multiple times to get the government funded and then the discussions start.\u201d<\/p>\n Oklahoma Republican Sen.\u00a0Markwayne Mullin said that talks between Democrats and Republicans are \u201cstalled\u201d but \u201cwe\u2019re having conversations with everybody.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds said that lawmakers have had bipartisan \u201cvisits\u201d though no real conversations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no framework,\u201d Rounds said. \u201cThere\u2019s just a matter of a clarification about how important it is to get the shutdown over with. And once we get that shutdown over with, we\u2019ll go back to bipartisan work in the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A sign advising that the Capitol Visitors Center in the U.S. Capitol is closed, in Washington, D.C. (Jennifer Shutt\/States Newsroom). This report has been updated. WASHINGTON \u2014 Congress has just one week to break the stalemate and fund the government before active duty military members miss their first paycheck of the shutdown.\u00a0 That would be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump warms up to idea of separate bill on military pay<\/h4>\n
\n\n ![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/missouriindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/johnsonthuneoct32025_0-scaled.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\u2018You can\u2019t take the federal government hostage\u2019<\/h4>\n
Trump threats<\/h4>\n
Murkowski reports informal talks<\/h4>\n