The minibus which would fund Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Treasury Department, State Department, Health and Human Services Department, the Department of Labor, the Housing and Urban Development Department, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Education failed to reach the 60 vote threshold to move it forward. With a final vote of 55-45 against filibustering the package. In order to set up the ability to quickly move the package again Senate Leader Thune voted no and immediately entered a motion to reconsider the package giving him flexibility to bring it back to the floor soon.

This is not a small part of the government that will be affected.... the Defense, Labor, HHS, Education, Transportation, and HUD appropriations alone take up roughly half of the governments discretional spending with the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), National Security, and State Department appropriations taking up an additional quarter. All told this minibus contains almost 75% of the total discretionary spending by the Federal Government (roughly $1.2 trillion).

Something that I have noticed some news outlets are not talking more about is even if Senate Leader Thune moved to strip DHS funding from the bill and passes the rest of it that will not stop a partial shutdown from occurring. The House sent the spending bills over as mini buses meaning they were bundled together into different groups (three overall) and if the Senate comes in an modifies this final one all it will do is send this BACK to the House.

With the House out of session until February 2nd the shutdown would not be avoided from the Departments of Defense, Treasury, State, Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, or Education. It would also mean Homeland would be shut down.

When the House passed the Homeland approps last week there were some pretty significant Democratic wins in there that if the House considers it again will HIGHLY likely not be included again because they were to help pass the whole thing. These include a $115 million reduction in funding for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, a decrease of 5,500 ICE detention beds and a $1.8 billion cut in Border Patrol funding. It also strengthens oversight of ICE through the Office of the Inspector General and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

This went from a mini bus that was going to pass with at least politically speaking relative ease to something that with the bill needing to be signed 11:59 PM tomorrow seems nearly impossible at this point. There has been no email bast about the House coming back into session and House Rules require at least 48 hours notice. Looks like we might have an answer to the government shut down soon.