Government shutdown

As the partial federal government shutdown continued this week, one thing is certain. For the first time since President Trump took the oath of office, the Democrats have gained some level of relevancy in our nation’s capital.
For nine months, the American people could have been excused for believing that the Democratic Party had ceased to exist, as party leadership seemed to retreat into a bunker. Now, the party’s push to extend Obamacare’s health care subsidies and restore brutal Medicaid cuts are getting attention from the media for the first time in months. The Republicans know that their health care cuts, designed to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy, are unpopular with the public and they’ve done everything possible to distract from the argument at hand. If the focus is on health care cuts, Democrats win the politics of the day.
Which is why President Trump has responded with his usual recipe of distraction and disinformation. First, the administration and Republicans in Congress claimed that the Democrats were holding out for health benefits for illegal aliens. That, of course, is nonsense. Indeed, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 (signed into law by President Clinton) prohibits the use of tax dollars to pay for health care for undocumented immigrants. Democrats have proposed no change to that law and the Republicans know it.
Such falsehoods typically have a short shelf life with the media, which is why President Trump upped the ante this week with his planned invasion of American cities. As long as the media focused on the legal battle over sending troops to cities like Portland and Chicago, health care coverage fades from the conversation. It’s a classic Trump move, designed to distract Americans from the shutdown, the slowing economy, rising costs, huge cuts to cancer research, and the final 2025 fiscal year deficit of $1.97 trillion, the third highest on record.
The Trump administration’s obvious violations of ethics laws, by ordering federal agencies to post anti-Democrat messages on their websites, was another distraction meant to keep the focus off health care. The impact of the messages is negligible, but the obvious abuse of federal resources generated plenty of distracting noise in the media.
Based on polling, the public is overwhelmingly opposed to the health care cuts enacted by the GOP-led Congress and signed by President Trump back in July. As we’ve previously reported, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the Medicaid cuts alone will push 11.8 million Americans off their health care coverage.
Congress’s failure to extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies for coverage on the state-run insurance marketplaces will eliminate subsidies for many middle-income families and cause big premium spikes for everyone else. Small business owners and farmers will be among the hardest hit by the loss of this premium assistance.
The two parties invariably point fingers of blame each time there’s a government shutdown, but that’s tougher to do credibly this time around. In the past, most shutdowns have come during periods of divided government. That’s not the case today, as the GOP controls every branch of the government in Washington.
The Republicans are running the show, and they could end the shutdown today by engaging in the one thing that President Trump and GOP leaders refuse to do— negotiate in good faith with their Democratic colleagues over the health care cuts.
Because of the Senate filibuster, which is designed to give some power to the minority party, the Republicans need support from at least seven Democrats to pass a new spending bill. Democrats are using the leverage that’s provided just as any other political party would do to press their point.
Republican leaders have said they’re willing to discuss the health care cuts but say they won’t do so until the Democrats agree to pass their continuing resolution to fund the government temporarily. Yet GOP leaders had weeks before the shutdown to engage in talks on the subject and did nothing, which is exactly what Democrats expect will happen if they go along now.
With so little power in Washington today, it’s understandable that the Democrats are exercising this one point of leverage to fight back against an administration that appears hell bent on filling the pockets of the wealthy at the expense of average Americans and their health care choices. And most Americans seem to understand this. Despite over-the-top finger-pointing by the White House, more Americans put the blame for the shutdown where it belongs— on President Trump and the GOP-led Congress.
In the end, of course, it’s not about blame. It’s about doing the job. And in a Senate where it’s imperative that both sides work together to pass spending bills, it’s up to those in charge (and that’s currently Republicans) to make government work.