A group of eight Democrats on Sunday broke with the rest of their party—including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — to vote with Republicans to advance a bill to reopen the government on the impasse’s 40th day.
That plan doesn’t include the extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Democrats staked their shutdown fight on. They did get a pledge for a separate vote on the healthcare tax credits in the coming weeks, but the prospects of Democrats landing a win from that endeavour are far from certain.The deal is likely to cause discord in a party that just days ago was celebrating a series of wins in mayoral and gubernatorial elections, where voters responded to the party’s affordability messaging.
“I think it’s a terrible mistake,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said. “The American people want us to stand and fight for health care, and that’s what I believe we should do.” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries also criticised the plan to reopen the government, saying Democrats in his chamber wouldn’t support it.
Healthcare PlanSunday’s deal demonstrates how difficult it is for Democrats to use what little leverage they have in a Republican-controlled Washington to push back on Trump’s agenda.
The promise of a future vote on health care tax credits is a deal Senate Republican leader John Thune offered weeks ago. Trump and GOP lawmakers repeatedly said they wouldn’t engage on health-care negotiations until after the shutdown ended.
Pain Pressures
Historically, the party seeking to use a shutdown to leverage a policy win fails to do so, and ultimately caves without securing the sought changes. This time was no exception.
Democrats’ results mirror Trump’s own shutdown fight from his first term, when he held up government funding for 35 days in an attempt to extract more funding for a US-Mexico border wall only to emerge more than a month later with little to show for the standoff.
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