A partial government shutdown is entering its third week as there appears to be little urgency among lawmakers on Capitol Hill to do much of anything to end it. No senator objected when the Senate left town last on Oct. 9 for an extended Columbus Day weekend without an agreement on a continuing resolution that would revive funding, and there's no indication that a Tuesday evening procedural vote requiring 60 votes on the House-passed Republican-led stopgap bill will yield a different result than the seven previous attempts. Senate Democrats are largely continuing to block the measure, citing the need to negotiate to address expiring health insurance tax credits under the 2010 health care law known as the Affordable Care Act, as well as looming Medicare cuts. Senate and House Republicans alike have said negotiations, particularly over the tax credits, should take place after the shutdown has ended. But Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, remain in no mood to believe their Republican colleagues. "There's definitively no reason to ever trust the Republicans, particularly as it relates to the health care issue and the Affordable Care Act," Jeffries said Monday on MSNBC. "These are people who have now tried more than 70 different times over the last 15 years to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And so there's no reasonable basis to conclude that, if they simply give their word as it relates to dealing with the Affordable Care Act tax credits, that they will actually move toward a legislative resolution." Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaking with reporters on Monday, insisted there was nothing to negotiate about. "You've all heard our Democrat colleagues demand that Republicans come to the table to negotiate. But as I've said time and time again, I don't have anything to negotiate with, Johnson said at a news conference. "We don't have any partisan policy riders that I can remove from the funding bill because Republicans didn't include any. It is a truly clean, nonpartisan, short-term CR." A Republican aide confirmed late Monday that there was no plan to allow Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., to set up additional votes on a Democratic alternative to the House-passed CR. Some of the immediate urgency of ending the lapse in appropriations may have actually gone away over the weekend. President Donald Trump said Saturday that he was directing the Defense Department to use available funds to ensure that the government makes payroll for roughly 2.1 million troops scheduled to be paid on Wednesday. "We have identified funds to do this, and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. Given how federal pay cycles work, federal civilian employees may still be receiving paychecks this week for work performed through the end of September. Democrats were expressing particular outrage at Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought over the Trump administration's decision to move forward late last week with federal layoffs known as reductions in force, an escalation from the usual furloughs of employees deemed nonessential. Schumer joined with Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in a Saturday statement calling for Vought to resign. "Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece," the senators said. "He is bent on punishing federal workers who protect our national security and deliver vital services to every American by pushing for agencies to fire thousands of nonpartisan public servants during the Republican shutdown." As the shutdown continues, there's no reason to expect Vought will be leaving. There were new outward-facing signs of a shutdown over the holiday weekend, with Smithsonian Institution facilities such as the National Zoo being closed to visitors as of Sunday. But urgent national security work continued, headlined by Trump's visit to Israel and Egypt marking the peace agreement designed to bring a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and to halt the hostilities in Gaza. This week, the White House is also continuing with a robust presidential schedule at home despite the lapse in funding. Trump is hosting the president of Argentina on Tuesday, and he's scheduled to award a posthumous Medal of Freedom to the assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk later in the day. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet with Trump on Friday. "I believe we will discuss a series of steps that I intend to propose. I am grateful to President Trump for our dialogue and his support," Zelenskyy posted on X.
