US: Govt Shutdown Risk Recedes Slightly After Report Of Johnson/Jeffries Meeting

The risk of a government shutdown on Oct. 1 receded slightly after Politico reported House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) “last week discussed a short-term stopgap funding bill going into November or December.” Politico notes, “There is no official plan yet, one person said, but the two leaders floated the idea to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1.”

• The risk of a shutdown remains elevated as both Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) maintain that they won't swallow a partisan stopgap. “We’re not going to support partisan funding legislation, period,” Jeffries told Johnson.
• Punchbowl reports that Republicans are pursuing three different strategies to avert a shutdown. The lack of a unified strategy also raises the risk of a shutdown:
• "Senate Republicans are doubling down on bipartisan funding bills that call for tens of billions of dollars more in spending than House Republicans — or the White House — have proposed.
• “House Republicans seem to be gravitating toward a stopgap funding resolution that would keep the federal government funded through mid-November, giving Hill leaders and the White House more time to find a FY2026 spending deal – if possible.
• “But the White House isn’t interested in a short-term funding patch… [Instead] want to fund federal agencies until the first quarter of 2026… This would avoid repeated shutdown deadline dramas [but] opens the door to a year-long continuing resolution — something House and Senate appropriators desperately want to avoid."