As the federal government shutdown stretches into its 14th day, reports from Capitol Hill and the White House suggest that the impasse won’t end anytime soon, with the Trump administration refusing to budge on the Democrats’ demands of expanding COVID-era Obamacare subsidies and other spending by $1.5 trillion.
According to a report from Punchbowl News, the Trump administration appears to be finding new sources of federal dollars in order to fund critical functions such as paying federal law enforcement officers and continuing to serve the over six million Americans who rely on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (known as WIC). The hundreds of millions of dollars that will be needed will reportedly come from Section 32 tariff revenue.
One Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official told Punchbowl that the agency is “making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence. Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs [reduction in force], and wait.”
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During “This Week on Capitol Hill” over the weekend, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) underscored just how painful the shutdown is for civilian federal employees and military servicemembers due to the Democrats’ refusal to sign on to a short-term continuing resolution (CR) that would continue Biden-era spending levels.
“[A]s of today, they have now voted eight times to keep the government closed,” he pointed out. “Now, who’s going to be hurt? Not just vital services, not just national parks and that kind of stuff. I mean, you’re talking about two million federal employees, civilian employees of the government who will not get a paycheck. … We have 1.3 million active duty servicemembers, men and women in uniform, who will not be paid. They’re going to miss a paycheck. Real hardship for families who live paycheck to paycheck. This is not a game.”
Johnson went on to express surprise over the Democrats’ refusal to sign on to a “clean” CR — one that did not contain any added Republican spending priorities — for the first time in U.S. history.
“I just assumed that [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] and the Democrats would do what they’ve done every year,” he acknowledged. “I mean, they voted 13 times for CRs during the Biden administration. And when we were in the minority party, we never shut the government down over something like that because we knew real Americans would be hurt, but they seem not to care. You’ve seen what Chuck Schumer said two days ago, … ‘Every day the government is closed is better for us.’ It is stunning to me that they say these things out loud. He tried to clean [it] up … but that tells you what they really think. He’s getting accolades from the far Left and that is 100% what all this was about.”
As Johnson further observed, the Democrats are attempting to extort increased funding for a government program that failed to deliver on its promises.
“[N]ever forget when the government subsidizes something, it means it’s not working,” he noted. “Obamacare did not achieve what they promised everyone that it would. It was supposed to bring down the cost of care. It’s done the opposite. Premiums [have] gone up 60% since Obamacare became law in 2010. Everybody knows it’s not working, so now they want to prop it up with these subsidies, just as they did, for example, with electric vehicle mandates. Nobody wanted to buy electric cars, so they said, ‘We’ll pay you. The government will pay you $7,500 if you do it.’ That means it’s not working.”
Not only are Obamacare subsidies failing to improve health insurance premiums, experts are also emphasizing that the subsidies are forcing taxpayers to pay for highly controversial procedures like abortion and gender transitions.
“Although the Schumer shutdown is hitting many hard-working federal employees who deserve better treatment, it’s encouraging to hear that the administration is making preparation to meet the Democrats’ unprecedented intransigence with a stubborn refusal to be bullied,” Quena González, Family Research Council’s senior director of Government Affairs, told The Washington Stand. “There is too much at stake in this debate to fold. Family Research Council is carefully tracking the Democrats’ central demand — to make the COVID-era subsidies for the ‘Affordable’ Care Act permanent — because those subsidies force taxpayers to pay for gender transitions and abortion.”
“Republicans are right to demand that the subsidies be reformed and ended; taxpayers should not be forced to pay for abortions or gender transition procedures,” González underscored. “It is critical that Americans weigh in with Congress and tell their elected officials not to spend their taxpayer dollars on gender transition procedures or abortion.”
As to the underlying reasons why Chuck Schumer is backing his party into a corner, Johnson argued that it can largely be attributed to the highly influential leftist movement within the Democratic Party. “There’s a rising Marxist movement in the Democratic Party right now. They’re about to elect a mayor of New York City. … Chuck Schumer serves from the state of New York, and he’s terrified he’s going to get a challenge in his next Senate reelect. That is all this is about.”
Johnson went on to observe that the picture of how long the shutdown will go on will likely become clearer after this weekend’s “No Kings” rally in Washington, D.C.
“We call it the ‘Hate America Rally,’ because it will be a collection of the pro-Hamas wing and the socialist[s] and the Marxist[s] and all the rest,” he described. “[T]hey’re coming to the National Mall on October 18th. Chuck Schumer is terrified of that group, and it is being whispered around here that there’s no way he could open the government before that is finished.”
LifeNews Note: Dan Hart writes for the Family Research Council. He is the senior editor of The Washington Stand.
