The big narrative heard from Democrats amid the current government shutdown revolves around the extension of tax cuts to make Obamacare more affordable.
I have been writing about this issue from the outset, stating that Democrats had two opportunities to make these cuts permanent back when Joe Biden passed the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, but they chose to extend them temporarily instead.
Finally, the mainstream media is calling them out on the hypocrisy.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) was recently on CNN trying to justify the Democrats' current position.
He stated, “[B]y the way, the reason that it expired is because that was all that we could get. But we’ve been arguing for a renewal of those tax credits for months. So, I don’t accept that particular Republican talking point.”
That is just a blatant lie on Raskin’s part. First and foremost, Democrats pushed those bills through via reconciliation, so saying that is all they could get is complete and utter garbage. They passed those bills with zero input from the GOP.
Second, Republicans have offered to put a one-year extension on the floor, but Democrats continue to balk, stating that if the cuts are not permanent, they want nothing to do with them.
While Raskin was tossing around those lies, CNN’s Jake Tapper hit him with a truth bomb.
Tapper stated, “Congressman, you called it a terrible Republican policy. Democrats are the ones that put in this end date into these COVID-era Obamacare premium extensions, not Republicans.”
Sadly, Tapper did not follow up with Raskin when he lied by suggesting that temporary extensions were all that Democrats could get at the time.
This is the problem with the mainstream media in that even when they finally get the Democrats on the spot, they refuse to squeeze them hard and let them off the hook when they lie. Tapper could have destroyed Raskin in that interview, but he just let him spew misinformation to the American people.
Jon Stewart, who usually falls in line with Democrats on these types of things, is calling out Democrats over subsidies that he says make insurance companies rich.
He hammered Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the issue, stating, “[W]hat Democrats find themselves in a place is, we’ve shut down the government to protect subsidies for an insurance marketplace that funnels $800 billion a year into the pockets of all these insurance companies."
Stewart continued, “Have Democrats boxed themselves into a corner fighting for a system that, ultimately, to get to the thing you want, that I think the American people want, they’re going to have to abandon?”
Sanders even admitted that his side had boxed itself into a corner, simply stating that keeping the tax credits was the best solution to the problem currently available, and then moving on to push his single-payer government-controlled healthcare as the optimal route. Like I said in other reports, if it needs government funding to stay afloat, it’s not worth saving.
