A deep-rooted partisan divide has shut down the United States federal government for what is now the longest period in our history. Republican leaders have repeatedly claimed that it was easy for Congress (in their view, the Democrats) to prevent this, and it is also easy to end it.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune saying in the Senate: “Republicans remain united around a clean, nonpartisan funding extension…simple and clean.”
But it turns out that this resolution is quite dirty. And it has gotten even dirtier as the shutdown drags on. Saturday marked a new milestone in the callous disregard for a large portion of the electorate when benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) were cut. million of people.
This added to a My dear 700,000 federal employees furloughed, the loss of key federal services, including economic data collection, and billions of dollars in losses to state and local governments.
It is heartbreaking to hear the stories of people who lost their main source of payment for food. This is something unforgivable for people who could no longer get enough food with an average of $187 per person per monthand have relied on food banks to try to meet their minimum nutritional needs. Many They cannot get enough food for their children. There are 16 million children among 42 million people who receive food assistance under SNAP.
Of course, the executive branch of the United States does not I have to cut these people left, and probably did illegally.
This problem was avoidable. It is important to understand the cause of the shutdown itself, because that is the origin story of what we are witnessing. Looking ahead, the political effect of the shutdown – as well as the substantive outcome – could depend on who is blamed for it.
Congressional Democrats were told they could accept the “clean, continuing resolution” and resolve the question of what happens next to the health care of tens of millions of Americans.
But it doesn't work like that. More immediately, the 22 million Americans Those who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces will lose federal subsidies at the end of the year unless Congress acts. Allowing this period is My dear double the annual premiums they pay, from $888 to $1,904.
Republicans approved their Orwellian One Big, Beautiful Bill in July without providing for the continuity of these subsidies. They have remained in that position. The expiration of federal subsidies at the end of this year is estimated to cause about 4.2 million people lose their insurance in the marketplaces, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Many more will lose their insurance because of the Medicaid cuts in that July legislation: it is estimated that 10 million by 2034. These cuts to Americans' health coverage paid approximately $1 billion of the more than $4 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade. These tax cuts primarily target high-income earners, not people who need health insurance or food assistance in the Affordable Care Act marketplace. sixty percent goes to taxpayers with annual income over $217,000, and one-third goes to taxpayers with over $460,000, in the top 5% of the income distribution.
The bottom line is that Democrats really had no choice but to reject the “clean” continuity resolution, because voting for it would have immediately thrown 22 million people with insurance subsidies under the bus. And voters know it: In a poll released Wednesday, 83% of Democrats and 61% of independents said Democrats should not accept the Republicans' offer but should continue pushing to prevent price hikes.
The truth is that this fight is the same one that the two parties have had for the last 15 years; It is a fight for access to health care and health insurance, which 48 million Americans did not have in 2010, before the Affordable Care Act.
It has been a huge success, with 44 million people now enrolled through the marketplaces and Medicaid expansion. Marketplace enrollment has increased by nearly 10 million people over the past four years as federal subsidies allowed people without access to private insurance to gain health coverage.
And Republicans have constantly fought it from the beginning, trying for years to repeal it entirely, with Trump promising to continue the fight in his second term. Now they are trying to get rid of it piece by piece; hence its current “clean resolution” that would double the average insurance premium for 22 million people. And the elimination of 10 million people from Medicaid over the next decade, which the July spending bill brought us.
This is also a matter of life and death: it is My dear that tens of thousands of people would be expected to die annually as a result of this vast loss medical insurance that is included in the bill. To avoid those deaths, we will need more major rollbacks of these cuts in the future.
Now we have another cruel, high-stakes fight stemming from the shutdown, the fight over SNAP benefits, which Republicans have been cutting for years. including this summer. On Thursday, a federal judge tidy The Trump administration will fully fund SNAP benefits for this month, by Friday. Although it is clear that the administration can do so, it refuses and asks a federal appeals court to block this order. Meanwhile, millions of people who depend on this food assistance do not receive it and some of them flood food banks.
It is indefensible.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of Center for economic and political research in Washington. He is the author of “Failed: What the 'experts' got wrong about the global economy.”
