As Republicans and Democrats trade blame for the government shutdown that began at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, and pundits opine about which side is winning, it is easy to lose sight of the real stakes. What the two parties are fighting about is whether Americans should have access to affordable health care.
President Trump is seeking to deprive millions of Americans of their health insurance, and Senate Democrats are refusing to acquiesce.
The president and his congressional allies want to end some federal tax credits that reduce the cost of health insurance purchased on Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Under current law, those credits will expire at the end of the year. Without them, average monthly premiums will more than double, to $159 from $74, according to KFF, a health research group. Some Americans have already received notices of the coming price increases.
Democrats have limited ability to extend the tax credits because Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House. But the need to pass a bill that funds the government’s operations for the fiscal year that began Wednesday offers a rare point of leverage: Republicans require the votes of at least seven senators in the Democratic caucus. This situation is not unusual. The majority party often lacks the votes to pass funding bills without help from the minority party, and the typical solution is a negotiation.
In addition to extending the tax credits, Democrats want to reverse cuts in Medicaid funding that Republicans passed earlier this year. And they want assurances that Mr. Trump will abide by the terms of any deal. The president has claimed he doesn’t have to spend the money that Congress disburses — asserting that he has the power to “impound” appropriations — which would mean any legislative deal isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
When Democrats controlled the White House and Congress only a few years ago, they made policy compromises with Republicans to avoid shutdowns. Mr. Trump, characteristically, instead has demanded that Democrats bend the knee, as he mixed bombastic social media blasts and threats to fire thousands of federal workers if Democrats did not provide the votes for his plan to keep the government open.
In effect, Mr. Trump’s position is that Democrats must either support his plans to slash important public services, or else he will slash important public services. He is confronting Congress, and the American people, with a pair of bad options — and no alternatives.
In refusing to grant Mr. Trump’s wishes, Democrats are making a painful choice. There is never a good time to shut down the government. It will cause immediate pain as federal agencies suspend important functions. Not everything broken during a shutdown can easily be fixed once the government returns to work.
But debate over the tactical wisdom of the Democrats’ decision should not obscure the responsibility of Mr. Trump and the Republican Party. Mr. Trump is threatening to hurt Americans in two ways and forcing Democrats to choose which one to prevent. The American people deserve and ought to demand better options.
Shutdowns are a relatively recent phenomenon in American politics. Until 1980, if Congress missed the annual deadline for funding government activities, federal agencies continued to operate in the expectation of a resolution. But in that year, the attorney general, Benjamin Civiletti, concluded that in the absence of a funding bill, federal law dictates that many government functions be suspended. Since then, an increasingly polarized Congress has struggled to hit its deadlines. Fifteen times since 1981 the two parties have failed to resolve their differences in time to keep the government open.
The current episode, however, stands apart in some important respects.
First, Mr. Trump has made almost no effort to negotiate with his political opponents. Last week, he canceled a scheduled meeting with Democratic leaders, declaring that he did not believe it “could possibly be productive.” On Monday, less than two days before the deadline, the leaders from the two parties finally met to discuss the situation for the first time. Vice President JD Vance emerged from the brief and unproductive meeting at the White House to declare, “I think we’re headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing.”
Rather than engaging Democrats on the merits of their position, Republicans have falsely and absurdly accused them of seeking to fund free health care for unauthorized immigrants.
A second difference is that presidents have typically sought to limit the impact of shutdowns on government workers and on the American people. During shutdowns in the 1980s, the Reagan administration classified many federal workers as essential employees so they could continue to do their jobs. During the most recent shutdown, in January 2019, Mr. Trump signed a bill guaranteeing back pay for federal workers.
This time, by contrast, Mr. Trump is threatening to use the shutdown as an opportunity to get rid of federal workers. Russ Vought, who runs the White House budget office, has publicized a plan to fire thousands of civil servants in the event of a shutdown, on the theory that the absence of a budget allows the White House to make spending decisions. Some experts question the legality of the plan, but that is unlikely to impede Mr. Vought.
Mr. Trump’s threats are making it harder to resolve the legitimate disagreements about public policy that divide the two parties. Now that it is too late to avert a shutdown, it is incumbent on the president and Congress to reopen the government as soon as possible — and commit to preventing Americans from having to pay too much for health insurance next year. The only way forward is to negotiate a compromise. It’s time to start talking.
Source photograph by bernie_photo, via Getty Images.
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