The intense partisan politics that drove Washington into a shutdown are making the path out of it hard to see.

It’s a stare-down, and one side has to blink — with Republicans and Democrats each vowing it won’t be them. 

Democrats have shot down a GOP-crafted stopgap to fund the government at current levels through Nov. 21, demanding an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies and new restrictions on the administration’s practice of withholding federal funds.

The impetus to find a solution is on Republicans who have the White House and both majorities, they argue.

“They’re in charge. They have to convene a negotiation. They haven’t done that,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Tuesday. “The fact that they aren’t even here in the House of Representatives is proof that they’re not serious about it.”  

“Trump has to actually be willing to negotiate and make a deal,” echoed Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.). “He wrote a book about making deals. He played a character on a TV show who taught people how to make deals. And he hasn’t really done that as president, but this is his opportunity to do that.”

GOP leaders are pushing back, saying they merely need more time to negotiate a longer-term bipartisan agreement — time that their “clean” continuing resolution is designed to buy.

They insist they will not haggle over the ObamaCare tax credits amid a shutdown.

“We’re not going to discuss and negotiate it while they’re holding the hostage of the federal government,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday morning on CNBC. “Release the hostage, and we will have that conversation about how we can keep these exchanges up and going.”

Those entrenched positions leave plenty of uncertainty about how long the shutdown will endure — and what will need to happen to break the impasse and reopen the government. 

Republicans are betting that Democrats will cave under pressure, or when the shutdown starts to be felt by the public. 

A freeze in federal paychecks, particularly for the military, could be a pressure point. Service members received their paychecks in previous shutdowns but may miss their next paycheck due Oct. 15 unless Congress acts before then.

“Until there’s something that makes the Democrat senators realize that this fight that Chuck Schumer has decided he wants isn’t going to pan out as some huge win for them — until they realize that, or until there’s some issue that they recognize it’s truly going to damage the country, they’ll continue it,” predicted Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.).

Yet Democrats are just as adamant that their voters want them to fight the good fight against President Trump — especially if it’s being done for the sake of preserving health benefits that Republicans have put on the chopping block. 

“If Republicans want Democratic participation, then they have to negotiate,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “This is a core principle of why people elected us to office.” 

Comparing the dynamics to previous shutdowns, Griffith said this one “feels different to me.”

The last shutdown was a record 35 days under Trump in his first term, from December 2018 to January 2019, as he demanded more money for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. It ended after delays to air travel caused in part by air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration agents who were not getting paid calling out sick.

Before that, a brief shutdown lasted three days in January 2018 as Democrats sought action on protecting young migrants without legal status, referred to as Dreamers, who were losing immigration protections. Democrats voted to reopen the government after negotiations with Republicans through the weekend, once they got assurances on future legislation to protect Dreamers. Laws to protect Dreamers never materialized.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday afternoon there had not been negotiations with Republicans yet, but he expected lines of communication to open up after competing Republican and Democratic stopgap bills failed in the Senate that evening.

Some Democrats, like Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), have suggested they’d be willing to support the GOP’s clean continuing resolution if Republicans promise to tackle the ObamaCare subsidies as part of the next round of budget talks. But those voices are rare, and the more common refrain from Democrats has been that they simply don’t trust Trump and his GOP allies to honor a handshake deal, on health care or anything else. 

“We think that when they say later, they mean never,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. 

Still, the simple fact that GOP leaders in both chambers have expressed any openness to extending ObamaCare subsidies — an issue that’s anathema to many conservatives — has created the sense it’s that issue that’s likely the key to a deal to allow the government to reopen. 

“Republicans need to come up with something for the ACA,” said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) “They need to make that presentation …. when we come back.” 

Some Republican moderates have signed on to a bill from Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) to extend the enhanced premium tax credit for one year. But to many others in the party, that’s an incredibly tough ask, if not a nonstarter. The enhanced subsidies were signed into law by former President Biden amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, and conservatives vehemently oppose the increased credits.

Opposition to ObamaCare in general is in the Republican Party’s DNA — having been at the center of another 16-day shutdown under former President Obama in 2013.

But there have been some signals from Republican leaders that they could negotiate on reforms or a phase-out of the tax credits before the Nov. 21 funding deadline that would be created if a GOP stopgap passes, or before the end of the year. 

Thune said on CNBC that Republicans are “willing to address” the tax credits outside the context of a government shutdown: “There are reforms that need to be made. There should be income limits. There shouldn’t be any premium-free policies. Everybody should have some skin in the game.”