The Democrats’ effort to shut down the government stemmed from their fight to extend Obamacare subsidies.
The Affordable Care Act was a disaster from the outset, doubling and sometimes tripling the costs of insurance for those of us who actually paid our premiums. Now, with the subsidies hitting their sunset, Democrats wanted them extended, yet they refused to take early offers from Republicans to do so.
I have always maintained that Democrats set this time bomb on purpose for political leverage, and when House Minority Leader Jeffries (D-NY) was hit with a similar accusation during a recent interview, he lost it on live TV.
When Joe Biden was in office, and Democrats had complete control of the government, they had two opportunities to codify Obamacare subsidies.
They could have done it in 2021 when they passed the American Rescue Plan via reconciliation, but they chose to expand the benefits, then extend them by just one year.
Then, in 2022, when they passed the Inflation Reduction Act, they also could have codified them, but they again chose to sunset the subsidies at the end of Fiscal Year 2025, which recently concluded.
I maintained from the outset that Democrats did this as a safety net to create leverage just in case they lost the House and possibly the White House in the 2024 election, with both scenarios ultimately coming true.
Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) dug in on this issue during the recent shutdown, hoping that public pressure would force the GOP to extend the subsidies, thereby giving Democrats a huge political win.
In October, weeks into the shutdown, Jeffries stated, "If billionaires can be provided tax breaks on a permanent basis in ways that will explode the deficit all across the country and result in people losing their health insurance … it seems to us that Republicans should come to the table to provide a greater degree of certainty as it relates to health care that's being provided to working class Americans.”
He was referring to the big, beautiful bill, but his premise has been debunked many times, as every bracket benefited from Trump’s tax cuts.
An analysis from the Tax Policy Center found that middle-income earners would get a 13% benefit, while the bottom 40% of income earners would receive a 15% cut in taxes.
Jeffries snapped at CNBC host Rebecca Quick for asking him if he really ever wanted to solve the problems with Obamacare, asking, “It’s important context to make me realize that I don’t think you want to get a deal done. I think this is something where you’d like to see the rates go higher and allow the Republicans to hang themselves with that. Is that the answer? Is this politics?”
The Democrat lawmaker angrily fired back, “That’s absolutely a ridiculous assertion. Three years is not going to get passed, so what do you do? Shame on you for saying that.”
He continued, “It’s not a partisan issue for us. In fact, the states that are most impacted as it relates to an Affordable Care Act tax credit expiration are all Republican states.”
I know that most in the media are still leaning toward the left, but we are also starting to see hints that they realize the Democrats are often lying and playing political games while portraying themselves as the defenders of democracy. It’s far from perfect, but it is far better than we have seen over the last decade.
