WASHINGTON, D. C. - A budgetary showdown between Democratic legislators and Republicans who control Congress and the White House could trigger a government shutdown at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday unless a chunk of U.S. Senate Democrats agree to a temporary funding bill that Ohio Democrats argue would rip off their constituents.
The legislation to fund the government through Sept. 30 passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday by a 217 to 213 margin, with support from all but one of its Republicans, and opposition from all but one of its Democrats. All Ohio Republicans voted for it and all the state’s Democrats voted against it.
The bill would hold government funding largely constant from the previous year, but would not include congressionally designated spending on projects in Congress members districts and states. It would boost military spending by $6 billion, and cut more than $1 billion in federal money that would otherwise go to the District of Columbia,
In the U.S. Senate, Republicans Bernie Moreno of Westlake and Jon Husted of the Columbus area are expected to support it.
“I’m not going to vote to shut the government down while Republicans are making progress on routing out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal bureaucracy,” said a statement from Husted. “The Democrats seem lost—they are either going to vote YES along with Republicans or vote NO and force America into a shutdown—a course of action they called reckless just a few months ago.”
A statement from Moreno said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York “refused to pass a budget last year, refused to negotiate after a humiliating loss in November, and now wants to crash our economy by shutting down the government. I hope the Democrats come to their senses. They are playing with people’s lives.”
One Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, has said he’s voting against it because spending levels remain too high.
Republicans control 53 votes in the Senate but will need a block of votes from Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold required to avoid a filibuster. Schumer says they won’t get the votes needed to bring the bill to the floor. He says his members would back a “clean” bill to fund the government through April 11, which would give Congress time to reach a bipartisan agreement that could pass both chambers of Congress.
The only Senate Democrat who’s backing the bill so far is Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman. A statement he posted on social media said he disagrees with many aspects of the funding bill but “will never vote to shut our government down” because doing so “will punish millions or risk a recession.”
U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, a Warrensville Heights Democrat, said the bill was drafted without Democrats’ input and pushed partisan priorities. She said it would slash $13 billion from domestic programs, underfund senior and emergency food assistance programs, cut Social Security staffing and negatively affect veterans health care.
In a social media post to explain her vote, Brown said the bill would also give President Donald Trump and billionaire Department of Government Efficiency overseer Elon Musk “a blank check, giving them the power to freeze and unfreeze and ultimately redirect funds without any accountability or oversight, while blocking funding for local projects in Northeast Ohio.
“Ultimately, this bill is 99 pages of Project 2025, and an insult to working families,“ Brown continued. ”What’s more frustrating is Republicans did not work with us, not on one issue for even one minute on this bill. So, if you want the Democrats votes, then listen to our constituents."
U.S. Rep. Max Miller, a Bay Village Republican, said on social media that the legislation extended telehealth flexibility for Medicare, and denounced Democrats for voting “to shut down the government.”
U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce, a South Russell Republican who chairs a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees funding for financial services and general government agencies, said he was disappointed that the House wasn’t able to put together its regular funding bills in a timely fashion. Approving the bill, he says, was the only way to “avoid a disastrous and costly government shutdown.”
“By enacting this legislation through the end of the fiscal year, House Republicans are increasing military readiness, providing the largest pay raise for junior enlisted service members in over 40 years, boosting resources to secure the border, and safeguarding hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” said a statement from Joyce.
Hoping to capitalize on anti-government shutdown sentiment, the National Republican Congressional Committee launched a series of virtually identical digital ads to highlight the vote, targeting 35 Democrats it deems vulnerable in next year’s elections. Among them were Emilia Sykes of Akron, Greg Landsman of Cincinnati and Marcy Kaptur of Toledo.
The ads show photos of the legislators and say they voted to shut down the government, which would cut off pay for most government workers, freeze government benefits, and would end up “costing Ohio families.” It ends by flashing their office phone numbers on screen and urging viewers to tell the legislators to “stop the shutdown.”
Sykes said the Republican bill would empower Trump and Elon Musk to redirect spending that Congress already appropriated and set up tax giveaways for billionaires. She said it would keep around $38 million for 15 congressionally directed spending projects for her district from going through. The largest of those was $10 million for Cuyahoga Falls to replace one of its fire stations and build a regional fire training facility on the site.
“I’ve repeatedly said that I’ll work with anyone, anytime, anywhere, who will help me lower costs for the people of my community in Ohio’s 13th congressional district, but unfortunately, rather than work with Congress, work with the Senate, we have this harmful partisan funding bill that hurts our district,” said Sykes.
She also called for passage of a four-week temporary funding bill that would “give us the time to actually negotiate something that is reasonable and not harmful to our communities.”
Kaptur described the GOP bill as “ruthless and cruel,” and said any funding cuts it contains would “be put into tax cuts for the top 1% of earners in our country.” She said it cut $22.8 billion that was supposed to help treat veterans exposed to toxins during their military service, under legislation named for an Ohio veteran who died after being exposed to toxic burn pit fumes in Kosovo and Iraq. She said it also cut money for Great Lakes dredging projects, and for Justice Department grants that local governments use to hire police officers.
Landsman pointed out that Republicans control the White House, U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, criticizing them for not doing the hard work required to pass a full year budget.
“If they don’t keep the government open, it will shut down, and it will cause further chaos,” Landsman said in a social media post. “Instead of maintaining this horrific status quo and refusing to do the actual work, all they have to do is say to Democrats, we want to work together and pass an actual budget.”
