Shutdown: Democrats stand firm, at a cost

“If Democrats court a shutdown, they’ll own the results”

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Don’t expect Democrats to vote for President Trump’s agenda, said Chris Brennan in USA Today. If the Republicans want Democratic support to pass a continuing funding bill and keep the government open, they’ll need to “offer something” in negotiations. The Democratic minority leaders in the House and Senate, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, insist that any bill that extends GOP priorities must also extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire this year and reverse Trump’s cuts to Medicaid. Trump, though, refuses to concede an inch: He posted last week that he wouldn’t even meet with Jeffries and Schumer, saying falsely that they were trying to “continue free healthcare for illegal Aliens” and “essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.” Given that Republicans alone don’t have the votes to pass a short-term continuing resolution that would keep funding at current levels, we are headed for a government shutdown when the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

“If Democrats court a shutdown, they’ll own the results,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The idea that the GOP would repeal the Medicaid cuts passed in July’s “big, beautiful bill” is “fantasy”—and so is the Democrats’ counterproposal, which would tack on almost $1.5 trillion in new spending. The Republicans are offering what Democrats have always demanded in these situations: a clean continuing resolution that introduces nothing new. That’s more than fair. By demanding health-care concessions, Democrats lose either way, said Michael A. Cohen in MSNBC.com. If they force a shutdown, they will be blamed for federal workers’ missed paychecks. If they force a concession on Obamacare, they’ll take “a huge political problem” off the GOP’s plate in the midterms.

Worse for Democrats is that “a shutdown would give the Trump administration more power over federal spending,” said Jacob Bogage and Riley Beggin in The Washington Post. The Office of Management and Budget decides what agencies stay open and which shutter, which means it could halt programs Democratic voters depend on while continuing ICE immigration raids. Even a funding extension, like the one passed in March, enables the White House to divert money that Congress appropriated and use it for its own ends. That allowed Trump to eliminate a suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth and funds for early-childhood education. Schumer is betting voters will be angrier at Trump than at him—but with the shutdown clock ticking, that gamble gets riskier by the day.