The Supreme Court's decision to allow the administration to pay only partial SNAP benefits during the shutdown gives Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress a clear road to victory in the shutdown fight now entering its 39th day.
SCOTUS recognized that this is not a separation of powers constitutional issue. It's a political issue, and the Supreme Court tends to avoid intervening in political disputes. The ball is now firmly in the hands of the Democrats, who have gotten themselves into a no-win situation.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tried a delay gambit, offering to reopen the government if the GOP would allow Obamacare subsidies to continue unchanged for a year. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) was having none of it.
“They’re feeling the heat, and they know that their last proposal was unserious and unrealistic,” Thune said. He referred to the Democrats' offer as a “nonstarter.”
Schumer's "offer" was ludicrous. Republicans offered last month to maintain the Obamacare subsidies in the stopgap Continuing Resolution (CR) proposal that would have funded the government through Nov. 21 (now through Jan. 20), while the two sides negotiated on the subsidies.
The ploy didn't work. The offer of a "clean" CR is still available, and Democrats are only painting themselves into a corner by not accepting it.
However, Schumer is caught in his own trap. He raised expectations among the Democrats' base for a fight to the finish, and if he doesn't deliver, people will start asking questions about why he didn't take a deal a month ago. At that time, Schumer sought an agreement tied to a permanent extension of Obamacare subsidies and the repeal of Medicaid cuts that Trump had signed into law the previous summer.
“At some point, they’ve got to make a decision about whether or not they want to keep this going or they want to end it,” Thune said.
Democratic hardliners such as Vermont's socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders are demanding his party remain firm. After all, Sanders said, the election last Tuesday showed that Democrats are on solid political ground.
“Tuesday made it very clear that people are sick and tired of Trumpism,” said Sanders. “Democrats have got to remain firm.”
They're already wobbling.
After huddling all week in tense closed-door luncheons, Democrats who had been divided on whether to prolong the shutdown or find a quick bipartisan compromise emerged on Thursday saying they remained unified around the issue of addressing health care costs.
But they also narrowed their demands, something many progressives had resisted. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, had previously rejected the idea of extending the credits for only one year, saying it was insufficient. But Mr. Jeffries said on Friday in a statement that he backed Mr. Schumer’s new proposal.
“We are offering a compromise,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said, adding, “Now Republicans just need to say yes and the government reopens.”
The subsidies that the Democrats are fighting for so hard are not the subsidies that help poor people afford insurance. They're fighting to keep subsidies that were "temporarily" added in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) during the pandemic, as an "emergency" measure. Most Americans who take advantage of those subsidies are middle or upper-middle-class.
Trump is a skilled negotiator who knows that the moment of maximum leverage for the GOP is approaching. Will he throw the Democrats a bone to reopen the government? Or will he allow Schumer to twist in the wind a little longer?
Either way, all the signs point to a GOP win on the shutdown.
The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own GOP Has Their Gthis.
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