The House passed a funding bill yesterday, but Democrats in the Senate don’t appear willing to take it up and provide the needed votes to prevent a government shutdown. Both sides, at the current point, believe they’re correct, and seem to be entrenched and beholden to their respective bases. At the present time, if the DACA portion of the funding bill remains the sticking point, any means to prevent the shutdown seems unlikely. <\/p>\n
Politico reports on the current status<\/a> of the shutdown:<\/p>\n Congress is careening toward the first shutdown in more than four years, with Republicans and Democrats at a seemingly intractable impasse over government funding and the fates of young immigrants facing deportation.<\/p>\n Though House Republicans voted Thursday night to keep the government open, the real drama is in the closely divided Senate, where it’s unclear what, if anything, can clear the chamber’s supermajority threshold. The Senate couldn’t even agree on holding a vote on Thursday night, adjourning after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spurned Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s request to hold a vote and, assuming it failed, restart bipartisan negotiations on immigration and government spending levels.<\/p>\n Senators said they expected a vote on Friday, but had little idea what would come next.<\/p>\n “These are hard issues, there’s a lot of disagreement. Not just on substance but how to proceed to it. And everybody’s trying to gain leverage,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.)., the No. 3 GOP leader.<\/p>\n The uncertainty came just hours after House Republicans put weeks of internal squabbling behind them and secured votes for a spending plan to keep the government open for another four weeks. The vote was 230-197, with 11 Republicans in opposition and six Democrats crossing the aisle to back it.<\/p>\n The Senate voted to open debate on the bill late Thursday, but the plan’s prospects in the Senate are dicey at best, with no apparent hope of winning the required 60 votes to break a filibuster. Some GOP lawmakers said they intend to vote against it, arguing that repeated short-term funding measures harm the military. And a sizable bloc of Democrats have also come out in opposition because it does not address the fate of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants at threat of being deported.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Some Senate Republicans don’t like the House bill because they want to ensure long-term military funding. Senate Democrats don’t like the House bill because it does not address the 700,000 undocumented aliens currently awaiting some resolution on their “deferred status” under President Obama’s DACA program. The situation appears somewhat untenable unless one of the three sides decides to cave. As it stands, we have House Republicans, Senate Republicans, and Senate Democrats all wanting different things out of this temporary funding bill. <\/p>\n Jake Sherman from Politico gives you the succinct summary of where we are:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the reality, at this point: Government is likely to shut down. Both sides feel emboldened. Both sides think they\u2019re in the right. Both sides think the other side will get blame.<\/p>\n — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 19, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n