WASHINGTON — Today’s editorial from the Washington Post Editorial Board echoes what House and Senate Republicans have been saying for weeks: Democrats in Congress are holding the government hostage, and it must end immediately.
“The right answer is to reopen the government with a clean funding bill, ideally for a full year, to get food stamps flowing and federal workers back in the office, and then have a debate about ACA subsidies,” the Editorial Board wrote. “Democrats openly acknowledge that they refuse to do this because it would mean giving up their leverage. If they persist, it could mean families start to go hungry.”
Read the full editorial here or below:
One reason the partial government shutdown has dragged on for nearly a month is because most Americans have felt no discernable impact on their daily life. That’s starting to change. This weekend, federal food stamps are scheduled to stop going out. Around 42 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans, receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
This pain point, combined with three other dynamics, should help hasten an end to the shutdown as early as next week by making Democrats blink.
First, the open enrollment period for purchasing health insurance starts on Saturday. Many people will experience sticker shock when they see how much their premiums are about to go up. Democrats will be able to claim they got their point across about the need to rescue Obamacare by extending subsidies that are set to expire.
Second, Democrats are favored to win most of next Tuesday’s off-year elections. If they prevail in the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races, as well as the New York mayor’s race, Democratic leaders could save face by claiming that the people sent a loud message to President Donald Trump. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are both New Yorkers who fear the Mamdani wing of the party.
Schumer has allowed the shutdown to drag on because he’s worried about fending off a primary challenger in 2028, and he’s still smarting from blowback he got from angry liberals after he agreed to fund the government this spring. Electoral wins can offer a pretext to claim vindication, or at least quietly give permission for a few of his members to break ranks.
Third, federal public employee unions, a core Democratic constituency, are losing patience. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 federal and D.C. government workers, said in a statement Monday that the shutdown is unacceptably hurting its members: “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today,” said AFGE National President Everett Kelley. “No half measures, and no gamesmanship.”
Kelley’s message shows why it’s untenable for Democrats to insist on a piecemeal approach to fund certain programs, such as food stamps, while keeping federal workers furloughed. Air traffic controllers, for instance, just missed their first full paycheck of the shutdown, even though they’re required to keep working.
Senate Democrats mostly stuck together last Thursday to block a bill that would have ensured the troops and other categories of essential employees keep getting paid, but now they’re insisting on a standalone bill to keep SNAP funded. They’re also accusing Trump of not tapping into emergency funds to keep the payments going, even as they’ve criticized him for diverting funds toward programs they care less about.
A variety of mitigating factors could prevent SNAP cuts from ratcheting up the pressure to reach a deal. More than two dozen blue states and D.C. sued on Tuesday in a bid to force the Trump administration to keep sending payments. They drew a sympathetic liberal judge in Boston, who has scheduled a hearing for Thursday. Other states are moving to limit the fallout: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) declared a state of emergency and said he’ll use surplus funds to cover food stamps through November.
Save the debate for another day about whether too many people qualify for food stamps, which have become significantly more generous over the years. Keeping the government open should be separated from policy disputes about how to spend taxpayer money. It is wrong that Democrats have held the government hostage for a month in hopes of extending costly Obamacare subsidies, just as it was for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to shut down the government in 2013 for 16 days in a bid to defund the Affordable Care Act altogether.
Negotiations can always fall apart, but the calendar could help: Both chambers are supposed to be out on recess the week after next for Veterans Day, which might help induce a deal by next Friday.
The right answer is to reopen the government with a clean funding bill, ideally for a full year, to get food stamps flowing and federal workers back in the office, and then have a debate about ACA subsidies. Democrats openly acknowledge that they refuse to do this because it would mean giving up their leverage. If they persist, it could mean families start to go hungry.
###