The U.S. Senate failed to advance a bill to extend government funding and end the shutdown for a 10th time. That marks the 16th day of a shutdown that continues to drag on.
The vote was 51 to 45, falling short of the 60 votes needed to advance past filibuster rules and move forward.
“So we are in the third week of the government shutdown. I have voted 10 times to reopen the government in a nonpartisan no strings attached way,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said during a briefing with reporters.
“I get numerous questions daily on how we’re going to pay the air traffic controllers, how are we going to pay the troops. What about other things? The simple way is open the government. This is an easy answer. We have three Democrats that have joined the Republicans. We need five more, and hopefully we will get that.”
Congress is supposed to allocate funding to 438 government agencies before Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year. The budget process was not completed by then so the Republican majorities in Congress have been focusing on a stopgap continuing resolution to get to Nov. 21.
Democrats insist they cannot support the GOP legislation until Republicans agree to health care policy changes, reversing recent cuts to Medicaid and other health programs. And Democrats want a deal to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that will otherwise expire on Dec. 31. Open enrollment will reflect rate hikes starting Nov. 1.
“I have numerous times said the issue of premium support for health care and the ACA is something we should talk about. We need to talk about the enhanced premium support, where the estimates will come out November the First. We have time, but time is ticking,” Capito said.
She concluded, “Open the government, and we’ll begin to negotiate. That’s the message.”