Lawmakers are navigating a familiar budget crisis, but a rarely used presidential tool is shifting the balance of power and raising stakes for both parties.

A memo from the White House budget office telling federal agencies to prepare plans for mass firings should the government shut down signaled a dramatic escalation in a funding staredown with fewer potential off-ramps as next week’s deadline nears.

With the U.S. Senate’s attempt at a stopgap spending measure failing on Friday, parts of the federal government will shut down on Oct. 1 if Congress can’t pass a funding deal before then. What would that mean for the stock market?

As Congress attempts to pass its funding package, Senator Adam Schiff joined healthcare professionals at an Oceanside clinic on Thursday to discuss the possibility of a government shutdown.

Democratic warned Republicans they will not support a measure that doesn’t address their concerns on the soaring cost of health insurance coverage for millions of Americans.

With the layoffs threat Wednesday, Vought has cast himself as a main character in the shutdown standoff ahead of the Tuesday midnight funding deadline. It’s a role he is no doubt comfortable playing, having navigated dozens of spending fights as a congressional aide, think-tank operative and Trump official.

WASHINGTON—Senate Democrats blocked Republicans’ stopgap measure that would keep the government funded until late November and insisted that major healthcare spending be added to the bill, raising the odds for a partial shutdown in less than two weeks.

House Republicans released a short-term spending bill to fund the government until late November but Democrats are calling for further changes.