The top Democrats in Congress on Tuesday said they opposed Republicans’ stopgap spending plan to fund the government past a Sept. 30 deadline, increasing the chances of a shutdown within weeks.
Their decision to reject the G.O.P. plan reflected rising anger among Democrats on Capitol Hill at President Trump’s policies and his moves to circumvent Congress. It also came amid intense pressure from liberal activists who were enraged earlier this year when Democratic senators allowed a similar bill to advance and kept government funding flowing.
Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday released a temporary spending bill that would keep funding flowing largely at current levels until just before Thanksgiving, while boosting spending on security for federal officials. He is aiming for a vote on the House floor by Friday.
That set up a replay of a scuffle over government funding that played out in March. Senate Democrats at the time allowed Republicans’ stopgap measure to move forward, arguing that blocking it would only cede more power to Mr. Trump to steer federal funding however he saw fit during a shutdown.
The move blindsided and infuriated House Democrats, who had voted unanimously against the bill. It also drew a fierce backlash from the party base, which had demanded lawmakers shut down Mr. Trump’s government.
Increasingly angry at the Trump administration’s efforts to trample congressional spending power and facing a base that is spoiling for a spending fight, top Democrats appear determined not to go down the same road again.
Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, both minority leaders, said their members would not support a spending bill that extends current funding levels unless it also includes concessions from Republicans on health care. They have not yet specified what those might be.
In a joint statement on Tuesday, they suggested that they were demanding that Republicans add to the package an extension of Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.
“The House Republican-only spending bill fails to meet the needs of the American people and does nothing to stop the looming health care crisis,” Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries said. “At a time when families are already being squeezed by higher costs, Republicans refuse to stop Americans from facing double-digit hikes in their health insurance premiums.”
While Republicans have signaled a growing openness to extending the subsidies, Mr. Johnson said on Tuesday that there was “zero chance” he would do so as part of the temporary spending legislation.
“Predictably and unfortunately, there are some Democrats who are openly pining for a government shutdown,” Mr. Johnson said.
Democrats are facing a dilemma in the spending showdown, still stung by their voters’ fury earlier this year at the decision to go along with Mr. Trump’s funding package. At the same time, some are wary of wading into a politically unpopular shutdown that would be difficult to reverse, and for which they could shoulder considerable blame.
As early as last month, as he held town halls in his San Diego district, Representative Mike Levin was already fielding questions from constituents about how his party planned to approach the looming government funding deadline.
The message, he said, was that his constituents were looking for an acknowledgment that “what we’re seeing from the administration is fundamentally different.”
Mr. Levin, who sits on the Appropriations Committee tasked with doling out federal dollars, had himself been frustrated for months over Mr. Trump’s efforts to unilaterally dictate government spending in defiance of Congress. He voted against the stopgap bill in March and believed Senate Democrats should have done the same.
“I was advocating for us to stand up for our values,” he recalled. “I thought that there’s a time for us to stand and fight against what we know to be wrong. A lot has happened since then, but the pattern of behavior has only gotten worse.”
Top of mind for Democrats is the White House’s use of a rare maneuver to skirt a vote and cancel nearly $5 billion in foreign aid funding that lawmakers had already approved. Weeks before that, Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, had infuriated Democrats when he said that the appropriations process “has to be less bipartisan.”
“How are we Democrats supposed to trust any funding deal going forward?” Representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, wrote in an op-ed in The Bulwark. “Why would anyone bother negotiating a deal that could be undone in a fit of political convenience?”
Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, acidly noted on Tuesday that Mr. Trump earlier in the week had claimed on the show “Fox & Friends” that he did not need Democratic buy-in to pass the spending bill, suggesting Republicans should go it alone.
“Shutdowns are terrible and they should be avoided,” Mr. Schatz said. “Donald Trump may or may not know that the only way to avoid a shutdown is to work with both parties. And yesterday morning, he said, ‘I don’t need to deal with the Democrats.’ And so, godspeed.”
Mr. Schumer, who bore the brunt of the backlash in March when he led his conference to let the government stay open, has experienced firsthand the perils of either choice currently before Democrats.
In recent days, Senate Republican leaders have resurrected the term “Schumer Shutdown,” referencing a three-day lapse in funding in January 2018, after Mr. Schumer led Democrats in blocking a spending bill. They did so after Republicans refused to cut a deal to provide permanent protection from deportation for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
But with Republicans hammering him by name for shutting down the government, Mr. Schumer quickly retreated, cutting a swift deal to reopen the government after winning a commitment from Republicans to hold a vote on protecting those immigrants, known as Dreamers. Ultimately, votes on three immigration-related proposals were scheduled, and the Senate rejected all three.
This year, Mr. Schumer took a different tack, arguing in March that Republicans’ stopgap spending bill was “a terrible option,” but that “allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
“There is no off-ramp,” for a government shutdown, Mr. Schumer said at the time. “The off-ramp is in the hands of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and DOGE. We could be in a shutdown for six months or nine months.”
The backlash was swift and furious.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, declined to rule out challenging Mr. Schumer in a primary, saying there was “a deep sense of outrage and betrayal” about his decision. Protesters gathered outside his Brooklyn home. Indivisible, the progressive activist group, called on him to step down.
This time, Mr. Schumer said on Tuesday, “the situation is much different.”
“Republicans are in a much weaker position now than they were then; the B.B.B. bill, which they have passed, is highly unpopular with the American people,” he said, referring to Mr. Trump’s domestic policy legislation that was signed into law in July. “Democrats are unified. We have been strong on the same message for a very long time, which is: We need to help the American people lower their costs, particularly on health care.”
Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times.
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