Congressional Democrats are marching in lockstep into the fourth week of a government shutdown, even as lawmakers brace for what could be the most painful point yet — a cutoff in federal food aid for more than 40 million people.
But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are signaling that there will be no change in strategy: Democrats won’t provide the votes to reopen the government unless their demands over health care are met. And they’re increasingly hammering President Donald Trump for his failure to sit down to negotiate with Democrats, while instead embarking on his second foreign trip so far during the shutdown.
“This is all Trump,” a visibly frustrated Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont told CNN. “Trump’s not engaged. Republicans won’t negotiate,” Welch said, arguing that Trump’s trip to Asia this week as “an indication of how he could care less.”
Not passing a budget doesn’t cause elections anywhere. Modern democracies have solutions to keep government running without a new budget (some sort of default minimal budget or just previous budget begin prolonged). What causes elections are non-confidence votes. Those are usually lost when coalitions collapse and ruling party can’t secure 50% of votes anymore.
In Canada, budget votes are always confidence votes. If a budget vote fails, the government is defeated, and the governor general gives the next largest party a chance to form government, and then the next, and so on (in practice, this never happens). Then an election is called