Government on track to shut down after midnight

The U.S. government was on track Tuesday to shut down at midnight as Republicans and Democrats in Congress both refused to budge from their opposing positions on a funding deal that could avoid that outcome.

Lawmakers took to the airwaves to blame each other for the looming shutdown.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” said Democrats “need to come to their senses here, and do the right thing.”

Johnson, R-La., said that top Democrats — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — have “painted themselves into a corner” by making policy demands in exchange for passing a funding bill that would keep the government open for at least seven weeks.

Those demands, Johnson said, are irrelevant to the urgent need to pass that continuing resolution.

Democrats are insisting that any continuing resolution to keep the government funded in the near-term include an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Those credits, which lower the cost of health insurance premiums paid by millions of Americans who buy coverage on ACA exchanges, are due to expire at the end of 2025.

Johnson accused Democrats of trying to protect Schumer’s “backside” by pressing that and other demands.

He said Schumer and other Democratic leaders were concerned that Schumer would become vulnerable to challenges to his position and House seat by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a leader of the party’s progressive wing, if they did not hold firm against Republican demands for a “clean” continuing resolution without any provisions for health-care protections.

Johnson said a debate about how to reform the ACA — popularly known as Obamacare — could happen later.

And he accused Democrats of wanting to give undocumented immigrants federal health benefits.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., in a separate interview with “Squawk Box,” called the question of ACA tax credit extension “a made-up problem by the Democrats,” who are trying to satisfy a voter base that is opposed to President Donald Trump

“This is Donald Trump,” Thune said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

Jeffries, in his own interview on “Squawk Box,” said of Republicans, “If the government shuts down, it’s their decision to do it.”

“We are ready and willing and able to find a bipartisan way forward,” Jeffries said.

But he said Democrats are unwilling to support a bill that does not include health-care protections.

“We will not support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people,” Jeffries said.

He said that on Wednesday, “notices are going to start going out” to tens of millions of Americans about higher insurance premiums that they will pay if the ACA subsidies are extended.

“We are fighting to deal with the health care of the American people,” Jeffries said.

Asked by CNBC’s Becky Quick, “Is it true you want to restore American taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants?” Jeffries replied, “Of course not.”

“And thank you for asking that question, because this is also an outright lie,” Jeffries said.

“Federal law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars to provide medical coverage to undocumented individuals,” he said. “That’s the law, and there is nothing in anything that we have proposed that is trying to change that law.”