Washington (BrooklandNews.com) – Mar. 14, 2025 – If the Senate does not pass a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded, the United States will enter a shutdown as Democrats remain divided on whether to support the measure.
The CR, which would fund the government through September, passed the House on Tuesday and is now in the Senate’s hands. To pass, the bill needs support from at least eight Democratic senators—something that remains uncertain.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said earlier this week that Democrats would not vote in favor of the CR. However, he later walked back those comments, warning that a shutdown would ultimately benefit Republicans.
“If we go into a shutdown—and I told my caucus this—there’s no off-ramp,” Schumer told reporters Thursday night. “The total off-ramp of a shutdown, how you stop a shutdown, is totally determined by the Republican House and Senate, and that is totally determined because they’ve shown complete blind obeisance [to] Trump, DOGE, etc. They could keep us in a shutdown for months and months and months.”
Schumer’s shift has sparked further division within the Democratic Party.
“I think we’re going to all be ‘no’ on cloture unless we get an agreement to propose at least this 30-day clean [continuing resolution] amendment and maybe a couple of others,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters Thursday. “I’m not aware of whether the Republicans have agreed to that yet, but we’ll be ‘no’ on cloture if we don’t get it, and I think that’s a unified position.”
If the Senate fails to pass the CR on Friday, the government will shut down—leaving Democrats to grapple with the political fallout and uncertainty over what comes next.