Schumer-Pelosi Show: Democrats Move Goal Posts on Shutdown

Having won concessions on a border wall and Obamacare subsidies, Democrats in Congress on Thursday moved the goal posts on a deal to keep the federal government open.

According to Politico, House Democratic leaders told Republican leaders that they would oppose a short-term extension in funding if the GOP tries to push a vote this week to repeal the Affordable Care Act. At a Capitol Hill news conference, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) referenced a long list of other “poison pills” that could scuttle an agreement.

“Any shutting down of the government is in their court. They have a record of doing that on more than one occasion.”

Those include measures to “undermine” women’s health and the Dodd-Frank law that regulates Wall Street, Pelosi said. She added that Democrats also want to ensure the bill contains aid to Puerto Rico, which is running out of money for its Medicaid program.

Pelosi told reporters that if the government does shut down, the fault will rest with Republicans.

“We are never going to shut the government down. In fact, we don’t even have the power to do so,” she said. “They have the majority. They have the president. They have the Senate. They have the House. Any shutting down of the government is in their court. They have a record of doing that on more than one occasion.”

While House Democrats are powerless to block a funding bill, her party has leverage in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to advance a spending bill. Republicans would need eight Democrats.

To avoid a shutdown fight, the administration backed off its earlier demand that the bill include $1.4 billion to begin fulfilling President Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall along the Mexican border. The administration also retreated from an earlier suggestion of using the threat of lost Obamacare subsidies to insurance companies to force Democrats to negotiate a replacement for the Affordable Care Act.

A federal judge has declared those subsidies illegal because Congress never appropriated the money. Democrats have demanded that the spending bill include those funds.

The Democratic reaction to Trump’s concessions indicates he erred, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He said backtracking on a signature issue after laying down a marker not only makes a wall less likely but emboldens Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

“I have no doubt the president is good at negotiating with bankers and construction unions in building his developments,” he said. “But he is a babe in the woods in dealing with a cunning enemy like Chuck Schumer.”

Michael Johns, a speechwriter in the George H.W. Bush administration who serves as president and executive director of Tea Party Community, said backing down on the wall was a mistake. He said it will not get easier to win funding in future budget battles.

“Procrastination often leads to inaction,” he said. “It sets a very bad precedent early in the administration.”

Johns said congressional Republicans could avoid high-stakes government shutdown fights by moving away from massive spending bills that must pass at the last minute. He said Congress, as it once did, should pass the 13 spending bills separately after an orderly process throughout the year.

“This again points to absurdity of us not returning to a more traditional budgetary process,” he said.

[lz_related_box id=”788294″]

Other conservatives counseled passing a clean funding bill and digging in for a fight when Congress passes the spending bills for the fiscal year that starts October 1. Jason Pye, director of public policy and legislative affairs at FreedomWorks, said he is not “100 percent certain that everything [in the temporary spending bill] will be good.”

Still, Pye said, the fiscal year 2018 budget should be the focus.

“That’s where the real fight is going to come … I don’t think we should take a hard line right now,” he said.