Longest federal shutdown ever moves into its sixth week, with hopeful talk from Republicans but no deal

WASHINGTON — Reaching 36 days on Wednesday, the U.S. government shutdown is now the longest ever, with no clear end in sight.

As it drags on, the stalemate is taking on added layers of complexity, even as thousands of Long Islanders and millions of Americans face hardships tied to the federal closure.

President Donald Trump has invited all Republican senators to the White House on Wednesday, and there are hopes that the man who wrote "The Art of the Deal" is about to get more involved in forging a resolution.

But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday provided little signal that Trump plans to do that, emphasizing that he is instead serious in calls to abolish the chamber’s 60-vote filibuster rule — as a way to impose a solution without help from Democrats.

"I think both parties will not come out of this smelling like roses. Nobody wins," said William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. "Big losers are the public and further erosion of trust in government."

The central sticking points in the shutdown are the Democrats' demands for an extension of enhanced tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, that are due to expire Dec. 31. On Tuesday, for the 14th time, the Republican-led Senate failed to advance the House's GOP-passed bill that does not include that health care language.

And the repeated failures to pass that bill since September are now creating new complications. That bill’s temporary funding of government agencies was set to expire Nov. 21 — a date rapidly approaching and itself now in need of extension.

Possible extension

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday appeared to agree with hardline House conservatives who want to push a new version of a temporary funding patch that would extend current funding levels into at least into mid-January.

However, changing the date will mean Johnson will have to bring the House — which has not voted since Sept. 19 — back into session. Some critics of his ongoing decision to keep the House away have alleged he is trying to avoid being forced to hold a floor vote on the release of government files on the late convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — an accusation Johnson denies.

But no matter what the new expiration date will be on a new bill to reopen government, Democrats continue to say they will not support a bill to reopen government for any duration without their health care demands being met.

One potential scenario has always involved Trump getting more involved. That scenario has him working with Democrats on a deal to extend the Obamacare subsidies in some form. In return, Democrats would agree to pass a so-called "clean" bill to reopen government, with a new expiration date.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has himself offered Democrats a Senate vote on extending the Obamacare benefits, though with no definite date and no promise that enough Republicans would help pass it.

Democrats' objections

For many Democrats, that is not a solution.

"I’m interested in negotiation," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Tuesday. "But agreement to take a vote that Republicans are guaranteeing will fail, doesn’t sound like an outcome that helps regular Americans."

And even if such a bill could be passed in the Senate, the challenge of getting it passed in the House without Trump’s pushing it could be an uphill one.

Whether Trump will talk to Senate Republicans Wednesday about actually trying to resolve the shutdown is not clear.

Republican Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Tuesday floated a latest proposal intended to possibly satisfy Democratic demands regarding Obamacare tax credits. She is among as many as 12 centrist Senate Republicans who’ve expressed interest in working with Democrats to find a compromise.

The plan, which Collins outlined outside the Senate chamber, would come in the form of a bill carrying a three-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies. The first year, she said, those tax breaks would remain the same.

But after study, reforms then would be pursued by the second year to existing eligibility caps and other issues.

Other variations are being floated as compromises.

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) has been a lead Democratic sponsor on a bill to extend the Obamacare subsidies. On Monday, he was one of a quartet of House members — two Democrats and two Republicans — to unveil a new proposal to extend the tax credits for two years, with a phased-out income cap for those making between $200,000 and $400,000 a year.

"There’s an appetite to get something done here," Suozzi said on Tuesday. But he said it would take compromise by both parties.

Newsday's Laura Figueroa Hernandez contributed to this story.