GOP’S SHUTDOWN STINKER
Eight Democrats defected from their party Sunday to join Republican senators in advancing a deal to reopen the federal government.
Hey y’all, welcome to another edition of Unfit to Print.
Who is the big winner in the shutdown deal that could reopen the government this week?
Well, if you’re a Republican, there’s a lot to be happy about — except for one major dud that should never have been part of negotiations.
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GOP’S SHUTDOWN STINKER
Eight Democrats defected from their party Sunday to join Republican senators in advancing a deal to reopen the federal government. The procedural vote to overcome the filibuster paves the way for a legislative end to the shutdown.
But “deal” is a term used loosely here.
What the minority of Democrats finally agreed to is functionally the exact same thing that was offered to them by Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Oct. 16, roughly two weeks after the government first shut down, according to journalist Chris Cillizza.
In exchange for reopening the government — the explicit plan agreed to now includes three “minibus” appropriations bills to fund the military, agriculture (which includes SNAP), and legislative operations, plus a continuing resolution for other funding through January — Thune promised Democrats a vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies in December.
To recap: the Democrats cried about “healthcare” for over a month while admitting they were using American families’ “suffering” as “leverage” only to agree to a plan that does not address Medicaid or Obamacare subsidies in any meaningful way.
Comments from the Democrats who defected make clear that they were disillusioned with party leadership, whose negotiations led nowhere, and frustrated with the GOP, who refused to budge on the ACA subsidies.
“I cannot accept a strategy which wages political battle at the expense of my neighbor’s paycheck or the food for his children,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said.
“It wasn’t working,” Independent Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, said. “It’s been six weeks. The Republicans made it clear they weren’t going to discuss the health care issue. The Affordable Care Act, tax credits until the shutdown was over. We tried to keep working that for six weeks. It didn’t happen.”
All of that being said, there was one major capitulation from Republicans.
The deal reverses the Trump administration’s reductions in force (RIFs) of thousands of federal workers. Roughly 4,000 bureaucrats who were laid off during the shutdown under the direction of OMB Director Russ Vought will be reinstated with full backpay. It also bans further RIFs through the CR that expires at the end of January.
On Oct. 14, I wrote about Vought’s plans to downsize the government during the shutdown and argued that we needed to “pump those numbers up.”
“The Trump admin must take advantage of this rare opportunity,” I asserted.
Democrats were ready to cave. They knew Republicans weren’t going to move on ACA subsidies but pushed the shutdown through last Tuesday’s elections because they knew it would help their candidates, particularly in Virginia, which is home to hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats.
Yet the GOP handed them a completely unnecessary win. And now, as we look forward to the next CR, I wouldn’t be surprised if a ban on RIFs becomes standard language in spending bills. It’s a horrible precedent, and it rips away one of the only bright spots of a shutdown that wasn’t helpful for either party.
WHAT ELSE IS ON MY RADAR
Check out the latest from John Loftus.
Dear GOP, Don’t You Dare Bail Out Big Tech
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I don’t know who gave Sydney Sweeney her media training, but they deserve the big bucks.
INGERSOLL: In Under Three Minutes, Sweeney Proves Nuclear Bombs Can Be Quite Subtle
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Yes, you’re reading this correctly.
TRIGGERED: CNN Guest WILDS OUT Over SNAP-Impacted “Eyebrow Technicians”
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FDA Commissioner Marty Makary’s book “Blind Spots” is a brilliant look at decades of “scientific consensus”-based errors in medicine. He is now addressing one of those errors from his position in government. This is what happens when you put smart, brave people in charge.
FDA Moves To Rectify One Of The ‘Biggest Errors In Modern Medicine’
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ELECTION DENIER!
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