- cross-posted to:
- theguardian_us@ibbit.at
- cross-posted to:
- theguardian_us@ibbit.at
The amended package will still have to be passed by the House and sent to Trump for his signature, a process that could take days
The compromise legislation authorizes government funding through 30 January 2026 and undoes the firings of federal workers that the White House carried out after the shutdown began. It also guarantees retroactive pay for furloughed federal workers and those who stayed on the job during the shutdown, and prevents further layoffs through January. Included in the compromise are three appropriations bill that will authorize spending through the 2026 fiscal year for the departments of agriculture and veterans affairs, among others.
The compromise does not resolved the issue of the Affordable Care Act premiums, which one study forecast would jump by an average of 26% if the tax credits were allowed to expire.
As part of the deal, Thune said he would allow a vote on a bill to deal with the credits by the second week of December. But even if it succeeds, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson has said he will not put such a measure on the floor.
OK, this is starting to make sense.
The deal says “You have to put the ACA subsidies to a vote by December. In return, we’ll fund the government until January.”
So they’re not giving up their leverage, because if the Republicans fuck around the Dems can just slam the brakes on again right away. Meanwhile it puts the ball squarely in the Republicans court to actually do something about this issue that is raising healthcare prices for people all across America. It puts the focus on the Republican controlled House, and on Trump, letting the public really see who is fighting for them and who isn’t.
I know it’s easy to assume that this is another example of Shumer caving (God only knows, he does it so much I’m starting to think his spine is a paper straw), but looking at the details I’m starting to think this is actually a solid play.
Disagree.
Democrats have the leverage now, and there isn’t any reason why Republicans can’t put a temporary extension in the ACA credits now anyway.
Buying time does nothing for democrats but gives Republicans slack to change the focus before committing to anything. This is a cowardly backpeddle, not a calculated maneuver
Except that in the public’s eyes, Democrats probably now own the current shutdown, thanks to the Democrats’ capitulation which makes the whole things look both pointless and in Democrats’ control.
So in January, there’s going to be even greater pressure and blame on Democrats if they don’t agree to the same Republican demand. Knowing our Democratic leaders have spines made of gently chilled consomme, the same things will play out faster.
And this only emboldens Republicans. They have always believed Democrats would fold. There are decades of history behind this belief and now they have reliable evidence this specific Senate and this specific issue is no different.
So Democrats just gave up all practical leverage, even if they have technical leverage.
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Yeah, no, I meant “democrats.” The reason why I think democrats will “own” the shutdown is that they gained nothing of value, and contradicted themselves by defecting without getting what they said they were fighting for.
If they had just held the line and trusted opinion polling that said people were blaming republicans for this, republicans would have had to own it. Now, democrats look like the ones who wouldn’t compromise for 40 days but eventually were forced to.
As secondary effects, there are also two negative narratives democrats created: (a) what they were fighting for wasn’t that important (so democrats are at fault for shutting down the government for something unimportant), or (b) what they were fighting for was important and they folded without getting it (so democrats are at fault for being feckless or incompetent). There’s a strong likelihood one or both of these will take hold and undermine democrats’ positions further leading to December.
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I’m using “own” to mean “take ownership of,” “take responsibility for,” or here most expressly, “take blame for.”
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They fucking lost. Got nothing after a month of doing nothing.
The entire PR battle was about who was responsible for the shutdown, when either side could have had defectors and ended it in the other side’s favor. But the outcome contextualizes the battle retroactively. Here, the outcome was that democrats “won” at best status quo from before the shutdown, which is just objectively a loss since we had 40 days of pain until then. Further, the public impression will likely be that the shutdown was pointless if nothing of value was actually gained, all while democrats shine a spotlight on their part in this. Democrats defected, so that is a “capitulation” which is a loss plus volition. Really confused what is controversial about those statements, let me know.
“Technical” in the sense that yes, you can say they have leverage, while in substance, no, they do not have leverage. “Superficial” leverage work better? “Illusory” leverage?
There is absolutely no reason to think a December vote will be any different, while they also gave up the actual leverage (the republican-damaging PR effect of this shutdown) and will start in December in a materially worse negotiating position because of that. I think the meaning is clear, but let me know if not.
How would the Democrats “slam the brakes” exactly?
When it comes down to it they don’t want to shoulder the bad guy thing for the holidays. Problem is that folks have to decide on getting healthcare by end of november.
There’s no more leverage.
The deal is government opens. That’s it.
Democrats just voted for that. That’s it.
There is no assumption. The vote already happened.
People are going to, but Schumer is at least saying he’s against it, and wasn’t one of the votes.
He’s not a leader, he was there to relay orders from the DNC to politicians, and any “power” he had with that was the DNC bankrupting someone’s state party if they refused to obey.
Without a corrupt DNC backing him, no one cares what Schumer says/thinks.
It’s a big reason why Schumer needs replaced in leadership asap.
He’s completely useless, so we might as well give it to a young/popular senator. Someone that Dem voters like at least. Everytime Schumer steps in front of a mic, it depresses Dem turnout.
Quick edit:
To be clear, this is how every neoliberal “led”.
And why I hate people saying “Well, Pelosi was good at whipping votes”…
She was just willing to bankrupt entire state parties handing seats to republicans if anyone with a D by their name didn’t do what the neoliberala running the DNC wanted.
That was never a good thing.
But now we’re returning to a bottom-up structure. Where elected reps answer to voters, and all the DNC does is run unbiased primaries every four years and ensures the state parties are funded enough to compete.
We don’t want a powerful DNC, that’s been the problem for 30-50 years now…
Among what others said, it specifically doesn’t require the House to return to vote before it gets the chance to oust a Dem seat and keep the Epstein vote right where Mikey wants it.
They’re giving up a big part of it. They’re funding several different departments through 2026.