Thune says extended shutdown means Senate needs to shift date on funding government

For several weeks now, the Senate has tried, and failed, on 13 separate occasions to advance a short-term funding bill to reopen the government . But now, according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, that bill has one pretty big problem: If it were to pass the Senate in the coming days, it wouldn't reopen the government for a long enough time. "The date is going to have to change," Thune said Monday. If the Senate had approved the House-passed short-term government funding bill on or before the beginning of the shutdown, it would have extended the funding deadline for seven weeks -- until Nov. 21 -- buying congressional appropriators nearly two months to continue their work on full-year funding bills before another funding deadline. But that was 34 days ago. And now, on Nov. 3, that sev