Schumer Says Dems Will Demand a Halt to White House’s Spending Freezes After All

Congressional Democrats are expected to release their own, alternative continuing resolution today, which will include language to fight back against the Trump White House’s lawless impoundments and pocket rescission.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday morning said Democrats want to make sure that “the process that we go through is real” — that the funding agreement they come to will be honored by the White House.  

Schumer and other Democrats have been vocal for months around this issue, saying that they are willing to fund the government in a bipartisan way, but they worry that any deal they make will then be broken by the Trump administration as it continues to not spend federal funding as Congress has authorized it — effectively making any government funding deal pointless.

“In other words, right now, [Russell Vought] and the Trump administration, with rescissions, with impoundments, with pocket rescissions, can just undo almost unilaterally anything the Congress does,” Schumer said during an MSNBC interview. “We said that’s ridiculous and that shouldn’t happen. So we’re going to do that.”

Individual Democrats have publicly questioned whether they can trust that a potential government funding deal would be honored by both the White House and congressional Republicans. But Democrats have not previously officially indicated they would include provisions to protect agreed-on spending from impoundment and rescissions.

The Democratic CR comes in response to the “clean” short-term stopgap bill text that House Republicans released on Tuesday. Republicans’ 91-page measure would keep the government funded through Nov. 21 but it does not include any health care provisions that Democrats have been demanding in exchange for their support.

The Republican CR includes $30 million for lawmaker security in the wake of the recent killings of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and Democratic state lawmakers and $58 million for security assistance for the Supreme Court and the executive branch, which was reportedly a request from the White House. The measure also includes a so-called “D.C. fix” that would allow the district to spend its full budget. This would essentially reverse the $1.1 billion cut to Washington, D.C.’s budget that House Republicans included in the last CR to keep the government open in March.

The Democratic proposal will also include “a broad base” of health care provisions, House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) told reporters outside the House floor Tuesday.

Democrats in both chambers have been pushing for a deal that would extend the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits — which are set to expire at the end of 2025 — in exchange for their votes on a potential CR. Democratic leadership indicated Wednesday morning that their proposed CR will include much more than just an extension of the Obamacare subsidies.

“We have seen the enormous damage done to the American people by some of the proposals and things that have been passed by Trump and the Republican Congress. We see it with health care, we see it with tariffs, we see it with energy costs,” Schumer said Wednesday morning, adding that the CR text “will have very strong protections that meet the needs of the American people and make their lives better.”

The Democratic CR is unlikely to get any Republican support though it will lay out Democrats’ demands — which Republicans claim have so-far been vague and non-specific. Ultimately, Republicans, who are in control of both the upper and lower chamber, will have to negotiate with Democrats as they need a handful of votes from them in the Senate to avoid a government shutdown.