Here comes a government shutdown.
Democrats have one ask: fund healthcare, in the form of extending ACA subsidies and restoring funding to Medicaid that was cut in Trump's Big Beautiful Ugly Bill. Meanwhile, the White House threatens to lay off more federal workers. Ho hum, bring the pain, just another day in Trumpland! Via the Wall Street Journal:
Republicans are seeking a seven-week extension in federal funding at current levels, and they have dismissed Democrats’ demands for hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare spending. In a move to raise the political pressure, President Trump’s budget chief late Wednesday vowed to use any lapse in funding to make deeper cuts in the federal workforce, a threat Democrats rejected as blackmail.
Democrats see the funding deadline as a rare opportunity to shape legislation, and the party’s base voters are desperate for elected representatives to show more fight after months of demoralizing defeats. Republicans are loath to offer any concessions, putting both parties on a collision course ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline.
Democrats have “asked us to do something that’s totally unreasonable,” Trump told reporters Thursday. Asked about the possibility of a shutdown, he said: “Could be. Because the Democrats are crazed. They don’t know what they are doing.”
You're right, Dementia Don. The Democrats are the crazed ones! How dare they ask for healthcare funding for average Americans!
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has said he plans to stand firm this time and demand bipartisan talks, rather than acquiesce to a Republican plan to keep the government open as he did in March. He said Democrats wouldn’t be intimidated by the latest threat of federal layoffs.
“This is one of their threats, and their threats are not going to succeed,” Schumer said in an interview. “ A lot of my colleagues who I’ve talked to today are very angry about this.”
