As the US government shutdown enters its fifth week it is a bad time to be an American and a federal employee; need help with food bills; need to travel by plane; need to buy drugs; have to pay health insurance; require Medicare, require Medicaid, be resident in a care home or be in the military or require help with heating bills.
As just about every American is in some way affected by at least one of the above factors, it is fair to say, that it is a bad time to be an American.
The government shutdown is the cause of the current round of American headaches. And the cause of the government shutdown is the Democratic Party’s intense dislike of Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
They don’t like the bill’s tax cuts for the wealthy or for corporations. But their biggest gripe is what the One Big Beautiful Bill will do to the health of the nation. It will effectively emasculate Obamacare, put up health insurance premiums by as much as 100 percent, deny Medicaid and Medicare benefits to millions and raise drug charges.
The White House said pass the budget and then negotiations can be held about the health situation. The Democrats don’t trust Trump to hold meaningful talks after he gets what he wants.
So, they have refused to pass the budget and the federal government entered its 22nd shutdown since 1976. This one looks like it will break the record of 35 days. That was set in the first Trump presidency over a dispute for funding for a wall on the southern border.
The president appears unconcerned about the shutdown. In the middle of it he took off for a tour of Asia. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is helping to stretch it out by refusing to recall Congress. Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management Budget (OMB), is using the shutdown to fire tens of thousands of federal employees. Trump has also said that federal employees who work for nothing during the shutdown will not receive back pay when the shutdown is over.
In the meantime, this weekend, the government’s food assistance programme (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme or SNAP) will run out of money. An estimated 25 million Americans receive help from SNAP to pay their food bills.
Another six million Americans receive federal assistance with their heating bills under the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Programme. As the cold weather sets in, those payments will stop.
Air traffic controllers are classified “essential workers” which means that they have to turn up for work whether there is any money to pay them or not. They have been working for zero pay for a month and many of them are calling in sick in order to support their families by working part-time at other jobs that pay them. Transport Secretary Sean Duffy has said that any air traffic controller who fails to turn up for work will be fired. In the meantime there is chaos in American airports with delays and cancellations.
The military has been a special case for the past month as Trump has paid the soldiers by diverting money from the defense research programme. That is ending this weekend and more than a million of the 1.5 million American troops will not receive a pay cheque.
Meanwhile, Americans face a massive rise in the cost of their health insurance. The minimum price hike will be 20 percent. But many Americans are facing an increase of 100 percent or more.
Anyone on Medicaid (the federal health programme to help the poor with their health bills) will suffer as major cuts will start to take effect in the New Year. Among other things, Medicaid is America’s major payer of nursing homes and long-term care. On top of that, the price of pharmaceuticals will also rise dramatically in the New Year. The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is being effectively dismantled by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
The rise in health costs is the result of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. The Democrats concern about the effect of the bill on the nation’s health has caused the government shutdown. So far, Trump and the Republicans are being blamed for the shutdown by a majority of Americans.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”
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7 Comments
Actually, what the Democrats are refusing to pass is what is known as a ‘clean’ continuing resolution – a measure to continue with the current budget for a short period of time to allow negotiations more time to finalise the Budget. These are routinely agreed to by both parties whenever more time is needed – until now. On this occasion the Democrats have decided to show they are fighting Trump by refusing to agree unless their demands are met. Unsurprisingly, the Republicans are refusing to concede to this. Even the biggest Unions representing Federal workers have urged the Democrats to agree to a continuing resolution but still they refuse. Ordinary Americans are the ones who are paying the price for the Democrats choosing to grandstand like this
“You are an essential worker and must come in to work. But because Donny is having a hissy fit, you won’t get back pay for that period when the shutdown ends”. And it’s the Democrats who are grandstanding???!
Hi Neil,
Yes, Donald is having a hissy fit because he doesn’t want a shutdown but the Democrats are the ones who are playing politics with people’s lives by causing the shutdown by refusing a clean continuing resolution to allow more time to get the Budget negotiated. The Democrats had also been playing politics with the Senate confirmation process by refusing to confirm non-controversial nominees who had bipartisan support by voice vote, as a tactic to try to delay Trump getting his government nominees in place – which forced the Republicans to change the Senate rules to prevent pure obstructionism. The same will probably happen with this shutdown – Senate rules will probably have to be changed to allow Continuing Resolutions to be passed by a simple majority.
It saddens me that the Democrats – whose positions are far closer to ours than the Republicans – are more interested in the fundraising they get from the stunts and the ‘playing politics’ they are doing, than the harm they are causing real people by their approach.
Whatever the rights and wrongs it doesn’t appear to be helping the Democrats. The latest polls since the shutdown all seem to favour Trump.
Hi Jenny
Firstly, can I say how refreshing it is to have a political site on which people can disagree in a civilised fashion. I was a member of the Labour Party for a while (over Brexit, I didn’t rip up my membership card, but took advantage of the fact that I had a grandson who wanted me to make him a model of a shark by using it as the former for a fin…) and when I resigned from a Labour Party Facebook site I realised after a day or two that not reading constant bile aimed at supposed political allies was incredibly pleasant.
You could, I suppose, describe the Democrats as grandstanding. Or you could say that they are flagging up as hard as possible just how dreadful some of Trump’s proposals are, notably the gutting of Obamacare.
But I suggest that you are in danger of going with the familiar line that when the “Right” (G*d, how I hate that term) does it, it’s fine and playing by the rules, but when the “Left” does it, it’s Playing Politics.
I couldn’t disagree more with Jenny. The Republicans have the trifecta, so it’s their responsibility to bring an end to the shutdown, but they refuse to
Exactly Jenny ; Performative grandstanding politics from the Democratics. Their actions do them no favours in the long term. At the state of the union address – holding up placards & and sat in silence is typical of student gesture politics.