At midnight on September 30, the government funding patch Congress enacted in March will expire. That means major federal functions will shut down if Congress and Donald Trump don’t intervene. The time frame for keeping the government open is actually shorter than that, since the House and Senate plan to be in recess for the Rosh Hashanah holiday on the week of September 22.

Unlike the budget-reconciliation procedure that led to the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill , appropriations measures can be filibustered in the Senate, so Republicans need Democratic votes to keep the government open. And the congressional minority is not particularly inclined to cooperate on another bipartisan spending patch as Democratic activists were incensed by their leaders’ cave on spending back

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