House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries signaled Friday that Democrats would not support House Speaker Mike Johnson's proposal to avoid the looming government shutdown.
Johnson (R-La.) indicated Friday that he intends to come up with a “clean” continuous solution for the vote early next week. Jeffries blasted out, “unacceptable.”
“We'll have a clean CR on the floor early next week, probably Tuesday.” Johnson told Fox News. “As I said earlier, we're going to provide funding to the government at the current level because all the cuts and all the new innovations can be calculated and actually made available to us in the federal budget.”
Conservative Republicans are calling for any suspension measures to include codification of the cuts ordered by Government Efficiency (DOGE), which are non-starters for Congressional Democrats and demand that President Trump and Dodge Chief Elon Musk from cutting approved spending in Congress.
Republicans hold a narrow 218-214 majority, and Johnson may need democratic assistance to pass his bill.
“Republicans have decided to introduce a continuing partisan resolution by the end of the current fiscal year that threatens to cut funds for healthcare, nutrition assistance and veteran benefits,” Jeffries wrote in a letter Friday to “Dear Colleague.” “That's not acceptable.
“Hospital Democrats are enthusiastic about bills protecting Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Health and Medicaid, but Republicans have chosen to put them in the chopping block to pay billionaires' tax cuts,” he added.
“We cannot support measures that rip off life-saving healthcare and retirement benefits from everyday Americans as part of a Republican scheme to pay for the massive tax cuts of wealthy donors like Elon Musk.
“Medicaid is our redline.”
Congress must pass measures to keep the government open until 11:59pm on March 14th.
The bill that maintains government funding that has passed the GOP-led House must clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. This means that at least seven Democrat senators will have to join the Republicans and hand them over and send them to President Trump's desk.
