Lawmakers of BOTH parties say they do NOT want or expect another shutdown….
So?
Will healthcare be pushed aside as a issue?
Will the Trump people let House and Senate lawamkers alone to cut deal’s for passage of the needed spending bills?
President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats don’t agree on much. But as Washington barrels toward another government funding deadline on Jan. 30, they are in rare alignment: Neither is eager for another shutdown.
Democrats haven’t finalized their strategy but are signaling they will not demand a health care deal in exchange for funding the government, a shift from their October approach that led to the longest shutdown in history. Meanwhile, the White House is privately encouraging congressional Republicans to advance appropriations bills and giving them space to negotiate with Democrats, notably different from the administration’s pre-October shutdown threats.
A shutdown is still a possibility, given how unpredictable a month can be in the Trump era and Congress’ struggle to pass funding bills. Plus both sides have plenty of time to ratchet up the tension. But the consensus-driven rhetoric is a 180-degree shift from the weeks of brinksmanship and escalating verbal barbs that preceded the government’s longest shutdown.
“I don’t think either side wants to see that happen,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said of a shutdown next month. “I think that’s toxic for both parties.”
Publicly, Trump hasn’t weighed in on the next government funding deadline, but he also hasn’t used his bully pulpit to scuttle negotiations — as he did ahead of the last shutdown, when he warned Republicans not to negotiate. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, said in mid-December he and Thune agree on passing the remaining funding bills before the Jan. 30 deadline.
“I don’t want to see another government shutdown,” Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Schumer’s No. 2, said about leveraging that deadline to get a health care concession. “I’ve had enough of them.”
The White House has privately supported efforts by GOP leaders to try to move funding bills, while largely staying on the sidelines of the congressional negotiations, according to two people with knowledge of the private outreach and granted anonymity to discuss it….
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Republicans are confident the White House learned its lesson about the political blowback of a shutdown earlier this year. In early November, Trump told GOP senators that he believed the shutdown was “negative for Republicans” and that it played a “big factor” in Democrats’ victories in Virginia and New Jersey
“The president, I think, was the first one to say that he felt that the election results back in November were in large part due to the shutdown and how bad it was for Republicans,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said. “He’s astute, so I can’t imagine he’d want to shut down. I’m sure he’s totally opposed to it, but that’ll be up to them.”
Still, there are signs Trump hasn’t dropped his interest in eliminating the Senate filibuster…
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The idea does not have support among most GOP senators, however, and has long been controversial because it would eventually allow the same benefit to the other party when they’re in power….
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So far, Democrats view the ongoing bipartisan health care negotiations as separate from the government funding talks, though they are likely to get pressure from progressive groups to link them as the deadline gets closer.
A major reason it’s no longer the center of the fight like it was in October: Enhanced subsidies for Obamacare premiums have already expired.
“After Jan. 1 the toothpaste is out of the tube,” Schumer said when asked repeatedly in mid-December if Democrats would make health care demands on the funding vote. “You can’t do it after Jan. 1. … It’s expired already. It’s not the same as it was before.”
Democrats are already planning to use the expiration of the enhanced Obamacare tax credits as a cudgel against Republicans in the midterms….
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Obamacare subsidies battle going forward….
Obamacare subsidies used by more than 20 million expired Thursday. Now Democrats are ready to make them a centerpiece of their midterm campaigns.
The lapse of enhanced premium tax credits, first passed as a pandemic-era relief measure under President Joe Biden in 2021, will immediately hit the pocketbooks of voters — some of whom will see their monthly insurance premiums rise by hundreds of dollars.
Efforts to extend them in some fashion continue on Capitol Hill, but Democratic lawmakers and strategists are already moving to turn the expiration of the subsidies into a potent election-year attack on congressional Republicans. They note that unlike other Democratic messaging targets — such as recent GOP Medicaid cuts that won’t kick in until after midterm ballots are cast — the lost tax credits are already tangible proof of what’s at stake on Election Day.
The strategy has been months in the making. Mindful of how the GOP’s efforts to rein in Obamacare powered their massive gains in the 2018 midterms, top party leaders decided in September to make health care the focus of the government funding fight.
That posture led to a record 43-day shutdown, and while some Senate Democrats ultimately agreed to reopen the government without securing an extension of the tax credits, many in the party are increasingly confident they succeeded in putting the issue into focus ahead of the election year…..
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