Democrats want everyone to believe that the continued government shutdown is the result of their ongoing fight on behalf of everyday Americans over healthcare premiums.
Rest assured, that is not the case, and you are about to learn why.
This shutdown is really about securing headlines for Democrats and a trap they set during the Biden administration.
On Thursday, Democrats once again blocked the GOP from reopening the government by voting against the continuing resolution (CR) that was already passed in the House.
After the vote failed, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) stated, "We're willing to have, as I said, conversations about all the other issues that they want to talk about.”
He continued, "But that can't happen while they are holding the federal government and all these federal employees and our troops and our air traffic controllers and our TSA agents and our border Patrol officials hostage. Open up the government."
Thune later added, "Every day that this goes on, the problems are compounded for federal workers and for ordinary Americans. Chuck Schumer may think that every day gets better for them politically, but I can tell you that is not the experience of the American people."
To try to get the CR passed, Thune once again offered a vote on a stand-alone bill to extend Obamacare tax subsidies, but again, Democrats refused because they said they want the subsidies to be made permanent.
Thune stated, “We are all about getting health insurance down, making it more affordable to more people.”
He continued, “There is a pathway forward [for an Obamacare extension], but it has to include reforms.”
The problem, however, is that Democrats are all-or-nothing, as they have been for years. However, this is not about Obamacare tax break extensions; it is about leverage that was generated by Democrats in 2022 when they were ramming through spending legislation via reconciliation.
During the Biden administration, reconciliation was used for the first time with the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which enhanced subsidies for Obamacare through 2022 and expanded the eligibility for those tax breaks, something which has been a big issue for Republicans and something the media has decided to ignore.
In 2022, when the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was passed, Democrats chose to extend the subsidies through the 2025 fiscal year, which just ended. Again, they used reconciliation to do it, and though it was the perfect time to make these tax breaks permanent, they chose not to do so, and here’s why.
Dems knew that Donald Trump was going to be the likely Republican presidential nominee in 2024, which meant that the GOP would have a one-term president, making the 2028 race fair game since Democrats would not have to run against an incumbent if they could not win the 2024 race. So, rather than make the subsidies permanent, they chose to extend them into the next presidential term to create leverage for the 2026 and 2028 election cycles.
On numerous occasions, the GOP has offered to extend the cuts, just like Dems did in 2021 and 2022, but they have been rebuffed, because the subsidies are not really what is at issue. Instead, the dispute revolves around Democrats creating leverage and getting a political win they can use in the election cycle. They want to say they made the GOP buckle, even though they had two opportunities to make the subsidies permanent when Joe Biden was in office. Why the mainstream is not addressing this scenario is shameful, to be honest. Political theater… they are literally treating us all like we are idiots and cannot figure this out on our own.
