Six more of the 12 annual spending bills could be completed by the end of September for a presidential signature, with only the Departments of State, Commerce, Justice and Homeland Security continuing to function at their current funding levels until after the election, under the strategy.
As funding for each part of the government, including popular parts like the Pentagon and National Park Service, is secured though October 2019, the impact of any shutdown lessens.
A key hurdle for this second stage of the plan would be getting House Republicans to go along with a Health and Human Services spending bill that does not contain new restrictions on Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.
On the wall, the House spending panel has backed spending $5 billion next year while the Senate has backed $1.6 billion. The House proposal, worked out in talks with the White House budget office, falls short of the total $23 billion Trump has sought.
Representative Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat who is the lead negotiator on the first package of spending bills, said a Trump shutdown would hurt his party. "The public is sick of the chaos," she said. "Business needs predictability."
This story provided by Bloomberg News.