Top House Democrats on Friday bashed the GOP’s plan for keeping the government open but stopped short of rallying their party against the bill, underscoring the fine line they’re walking around the shutdown looming next week.
In a letter to members, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar trashed Speaker Mike Johnson’s intent to pass a bill next week to keep federal agencies running on autopilot budgets through September. The missive does not call for all Democrats to vote “no” on that bill, after Jeffries said Thursday that “Republicans are going it alone.” But the letter does defend safety-net programs like Medicaid that Republicans are targeting in their separate, yet-to-be-drafted, party-line page of tax cuts, defense spending, border security investments and energy policy.
“Medicaid is our redline,” the letter said. The Democratic leaders did not elaborate, however, on whether they would demand future Medicaid protections as an ultimatum in the fight over government funding.
House GOP leaders aim to release bill text of their funding bill later Friday or over the weekend, hoping to give lawmakers at least three days to review the measure before a vote ahead of the March 14 government shutdown deadline.
Predicting that the bill will pass the House, Johnson said on Friday that there won’t be any way “politically” for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to avoid blame for a government shutdown if Democratic senators don’t vote to send the bill to President Donald Trump, who has personally whipped support among GOP lawmakers. Many Senate Democrats still won’t say how they would vote if the House passes the lengthy stopgap next week, and at least eight of them are going to have to cross party lines to advance the measure.
“It will be on him,” the speaker said of Schumer on Fox News. “Everybody in the country will be watching.”
The letter House Democratic leaders penned on Friday also warns that the House Republican plan to pass a “full-year” funding patch “threatens to cut funding for healthcare, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits through the end of the current fiscal year.”
While the legislation is not expected to directly cut funding for federal programs, Democratic leaders caution it will empower the Trump administration to continue freezing billions of dollars — including for veterans, education, law enforcement and housing initiatives — while Elon Musk leads the cost-cutting efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency. The Democrats also criticized Republicans’ plans to enact a partisan package through the reconciliation process that would bankroll trillions of dollars in tax breaks by cutting safety-net programs like Medicaid and SNAP food assistance to low-income households.
“House Democrats would enthusiastically support a bill that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans health and Medicaid, but Republicans have chosen to put them on the chopping block to pay for billionaire tax cuts,” the letter said. “We cannot back a measure that rips away life-sustaining healthcare and retirement benefits from everyday Americans as part of the Republican scheme to pay for massive tax cuts for their wealthy donors like Elon Musk.”
The Democratic leaders said their top appropriator, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, “remains ready to negotiate a meaningful bipartisan spending agreement that puts working people first.”
DeLauro and Congress’ other top appropriators confirmed this week that they were closing in on a deal on overall spending levels for the military and non-defense programs, the first step to finalizing bipartisan bills that would fund the government at updated levels for the remainder of the fiscal year. That agreement has yet to materialize, however, as Johnson insists that a “full-year” stopgap is the only option House Republicans are considering.
