Democrats and Republicans yield no ground as government shutdown continues

WASHINGTON — With several high-profile federal programs on the cusp of running out of money Saturday, Republicans and Democrats ratcheted up their blame game on Day 29 of the government shutdown with no clear end in sight. Neither side showed any signs of backing off their entrenched positions Wednesday, as hundreds of thousands of federal employees work without pay.

“More air traffic controllers and TSA agents and park rangers are about to go without a paycheck. You’ve got families and children that rely on SNAP benefits that are going to go hungry at the end of the week,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during his daily news conference on Wednesday. “The Democrats own every one of these consequences.”

The federal government has been closed since Oct. 1 when Democrats and Republicans in Congress failed to pass legislation that would fund it for the 2026 fiscal year. A stopgap funding bill to keep the government open through Nov. 21 has repeatedly failed in the Senate, as Democrats demand an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that will otherwise expire at the end of the year.

“On Saturday, this gets very real,” Johnson said.

On Nov. 1, the Agriculture Department’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provides food assistance to 42 million low-income Americans will not pay benefits for the month. Federal funding will also stop flowing to the Head Start early childhood education program that helps at least 800,000 children under the age of six and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC.

Nov. 1 also marks the start of open enrollment, when Americans across the country begin to sign up for their 2026 health insurance plans.

“Republicans are using the government shutdown to illegally rip SNAP benefits away from 42 million Americans. 16 million children are at risk of going hungry,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on X Wednesday morning. “The extremists don’t give a damn. You deserve better.”

Republican leaders in the House and Senate, along with President Donald Trump, have insisted for weeks that they will only negotiate with Democrats about health care funding once the shutdown has ended.

“Republicans are trying the same failed play that they’ve tried before: Get rid of health care for the American people. If you can’t afford health care, it’s your fault,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday at a news conference.

Schumer reiterated what Democrats have been saying for weeks: that he and Jeffries are ready and willing to sit down and negotiate with Republicans.

“The Republicans just keep saying, ‘later,’” Schumer said. “When the Republicans say later, they mean never. And that’s why we are pushing now to get this done.”

With the clock ticking on the Nov. 21 funding deadline in the stopgap funding bill, Johnson acknowledged that time is running out for Congress to hammer out the details and pass the necessary appropriations bills for federal funding in the 2026 fiscal year. But crafting a new short-term funding bill with an extended timeline, he said, would be “a futile exercise” that “would meet the exact same fate with Chuck Schumer. He would mock it. They would spike it, and they would try to blame it on us.”

Democratic senators have remained united in blocking the Republican stopgap funding bill all month, despite repeated pleas from Republicans for five moderate Democrats to join them and allow it to pass.

On Wednesday, Johnson said he has given up on negotiating with Schumer and Jeffries in favor of appealing to Democratic moderates in the Senate who may come around to Republicans’ pleas.

He pointed to multiple unions who urged passage of the Republican bill to reopen the government this week, including the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

Johnson also cited new polling as evidence that Republicans are winning the blame game over the shutdown. On Tuesday, CNN reported that approval of congressional Republicans has increased eight points among independent voters since the shutdown began.

One week ago, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 45% of registered voters thought Republicans were most responsible for the shutdown compared with 39% who blamed Democrats.