- The federal government will enter a partial shutdown at midnight if no funding bill passes the Senate.
- Senate Democrats and some Republicans have proposed passing a short-term funding bill to extend the deadline by a few days to give the two sides more time to hash out a larger deal.
- The Senate Republican leadership wants nothing to do with that idea.
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A top Senate Republican just threw cold water on the Hail Mary plan to avoid a shutdown
Democrats and some Republicans want to pass a bill to fund the government for a few more days, but the GOP leadership is against the plan.
As the federal government careens toward a partial shutdown, a last-ditch attempt to placate Democrats appears to be dead on arrival in the Senate.
Senate Democratic leaders and some Republicans openly discussed the possibility for a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, that would last a few days. Proponents argued it would give negotiators from the two parties time to hash out a broader funding deal than the current GOP-led bill.
Sen. John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the chamber, shut down the idea as a nonstarter Friday.
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"It doesn’t solve any problems because we’ll have to do another CR later," Cornyn told Business Insider. "Because until you get budget caps you can’t do an omnibus. So it’s just all a futility it seems to me."
The resolution that passed the House on Thursday would extend funding for the government until February 16.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also attacked the idea during a speech on the Senate floor earlier Friday, saying Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is betraying his own demands by asking for an even shorter solution.
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