Democrats refuse to budge over Obamacare fight as shutdown drags on

Senate Democrats appear ready for the long haul as the government shutdown continues and are putting the onus of reopening the government on Republicans.

The Senate was out Thursday to observe the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur and is expected to return to action Friday to again vote on the dueling proposals to reopen the government. Though three Democratic caucus members have voted for the GOP’s plan, an end to the shutdown still seems a way out.

Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have largely unified around the push for expiring Obamacare tax credits that they say must be dealt with now rather than at the end of the year when they are set to end.

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Republicans argue that any negotiations for the expiring subsidies can happen once the government reopens.

“Democrats know we need to reopen the government, and they know that they’re appropriately getting blamed for shutting it down, and we’re going to continue to bring up the continuing resolution,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said. “There’s things they want to negotiate, and we can do that once the government is open.”

The White House, particularly Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought, and President Donald Trump have ramped up pressure on Senate Democrats, too, with targeted spending cuts to blue states and threats of mass firings of federal workers.

But Vought’s targeted cuts likely do not help Democrats move closer to supporting the GOP’s continuing resolution (CR).

“Russ Vought is a menace whether the government is open or closed. He wakes up figuring, ‘What damage can I do today?’ That’s what he does,” Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said. “So, the status of government [being] open or closed, it’s not relevant to Russell Vought. He just goes on his rampage every day.”

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Senate Democratic leadership also appears unwilling to cave this early into a shutdown as Republicans plan to continue bringing their short-term extension to the floor. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said that he planned to continue to vote down the GOP’s plan.

“How long can Republicans explain to the American people that they want to do nothing to help pay for health insurance,” he said.

When asked if he was concerned by Vought targeting projects in blue states, Durbin said, “Sadly, it’s a consistent pattern.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., charged that Trump didn’t have “superpowers during a shutdown” to fire federal workers and slash additional funding.

“The news today is that the president is deciding to act illegally and shut down funding for Democratic states and keep money flowing for Republican states,” Murphy said. “This is not a functioning democracy if the president seizes spending power in order to reward his friends and punish his enemies.”

Murphy said Democrats would not “get run over” during the shutdown, and that the government would reopen when the GOP gets “serious about talking to Democrats.”

Early negotiations on a path forward materialized on the Senate floor on Wednesday, but no real deal came from those talks. Instead, Republicans and Democrats in the impromptu meeting said that they left with a better understanding of either side’s desires.

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Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., previously voted with Schumer in March to keep the government open. The retiring senator was also one of the nearly dozen lawmakers in a bipartisan huddle on the Senate floor that sparked early negotiations on the expiring credits.

Peters said that it was “premature” to say there was a deal or plan locked in after those talks, but he warned that deeper issues were still at play for congressional Democrats when it came to dealing with the GOP and White House.

“There are all sorts of trust issues, both in the Senate and the House, so we have to work through all of that,” he said.

And Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., was one of just three Democratic caucus members who have now voted twice with Republicans on their CR. While she supported reopening the government, she still blamed Republicans for ignoring the Obamacare tax credits.

“[Republicans] created this crisis … and they need to address it,” she said. “They have no moral standing, no moral standing to stand back and say that this is all on the Democrats. They are in control, they created this crisis. People are suffering.”

When asked if she trusted Republicans in negotiations, Cortez Masto countered, “You tell me?”

“They’re already entrenched in their positions, unfortunately, and not thinking about the American public,” she said.