The United States Senate is holding a vote to advance a Republican stopgap funding package that could pave the way to end the longest government shutdown in the country’s history.
The breakthrough on Sunday came after a group of centrist Democrats negotiated a deal to reopen the government through January if Republicans promise to hold a vote on expiring healthcare subsidies by December.
The package also included bills to fund some parts of the government, including food aid and the legislative branch, until the end of the fiscal year.
Some eight Democrats voted in favour of advancing the package.
Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said the support from the Democrats meant that the Senate has the 60 votes required to break the weeks-long impasse.
“Now, this is what is called a cloture, a procedure by which the Senate agrees to continue the debate about the legislation and begin introducing and passing the bills aimed at ending the shutdown,” Hanna said.
“The important thing about the cloture vote is that once it is passed, at that 60 percent majority, every subsequent vote is by a simple majority. So it would appear to be plain sailing in the Senate to pass this bill and the continuing resolution to refund the government and ending the closure,” he added.
The amended package would still have to be passed by the House of Representatives and sent to President Donald Trump for his signature, a process that could take several days.
As news of the breakthrough emerged, Trump told reporters when he arrived at the White House after a weekend in Florida: “It looks like we’re getting very close to the shutdown ending.”
Fallout deepens
The shutdown, currently in its 40th day, has caused thousands of flight cancellations, furloughed about 750,000 federal employees and put food assistance for millions of Americans at risk.
Air traffic staffing shortages led at least 2,300 flights travelling within the US and to and from the country to be cancelled as of Sunday, according to data from tracking platform FlightAware, along with more than 8,000 delays.
New York City area airports, along with Chicago’s O’Hare and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airports, were especially hard-hit.
Meanwhile, some 42 million people – or one in eight Americans – who rely on the food aid programme Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have seen their benefits threatened. Although two courts ordered that the Trump administration must pay out SNAP funds during the shutdown, the Supreme Court paused one of the rulings until further legal arguments could be heard.
“Now, the Trump administration has told states they cannot pay more than 60 percent of the funds due this month, and it is threatening to cut all federal funds to any state that does so,” said Al Jazeera’s Hanna.
“For Americans, this is really beginning to bite home, and they are trying to ramp up the pressure on senators,” Hanna said.
Health subsidies
The shutdown began on October 1, when the Senate failed to agree on spending priorities. Since then, Democrats have voted 14 times not to reopen the government as they demanded the extension of tax credits that make coverage more affordable for health plans offered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The subsidies, which were put in place in 2021, have helped double ACA enrolment to 24 million Americans.
Democrats have pushed for a one-year extension of the subsidies, but Republicans have maintained they are open to addressing the issue only after government funding is restored.
Ahead of Sunday’s vote, Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Angus King and Tim Kaine said they would support the agreement.
“This deal guarantees a vote to extend Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, which Republicans weren’t willing to do,” said Kaine, who is from Virginia, which is home to millions of federal workers.
The bill “will protect federal workers from baseless firings, reinstate those who have been wrongfully terminated during the shutdown, and ensure federal workers receive back pay” as required by law, he added.
But many Senate Democrats are opposed to the deal, including the chamber’s top Democrat Chuck Schumer, who expressed anger that it offers a vote for extending the health care subsidies instead of extending them directly.
“I cannot in good faith support this CR that fails to address the health care crisis,” Schumer told the chamber, adding: “This fight will and must continue.”
Final passage of the legislation could take several days if Democrats object and draw out the process. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats, said that giving up the fight was a “horrific mistake.”
House Democrats also chimed in against it.
Texas Representative Greg Casar, the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said a deal that does not reduce healthcare costs is a “betrayal” of millions of Americans who are counting on Democrats to fight.
“Accepting nothing but a pinky promise from Republicans isn’t a compromise – it’s capitulation,” Casar said in a post on X. “Millions of families would pay the price.”
Trump, meanwhile, pushed again to replace subsidies for the ACA health insurance marketplaces with direct payments to individuals.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump blasted the subsidies as a “windfall for Health Insurance Companies, and a DISASTER for the American people”, while demanding the funds be sent directly to individuals to buy coverage on their own.
“I stand ready to work with both Parties to solve this problem once the Government is open,” Trump wrote.
Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, said he believed Trump’s healthcare proposal was aimed at gutting the ACA and allowing insurance companies to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
“So the same insurance companies he’s railing against in those tweets, he is saying: ‘I’m going to give you more power to cancel people’s policies and not cover them if they have a pre-existing condition,’” Schiff said on ABC’s “This Week” programme. (Al Jazeera)