WASHINGTON — Ezra Levin despaired earlier this month when it appeared Democrats on Capitol Hill had no plan to fight Republicans over government funding.
To Levin, who co-founded the progressive group Indivisible in 2016 to resist the first Donald Trump administration, it was “baffling” Democrats hadn’t issued any demands. It looked as if they’d roll over just like they did in March.
But now that Democrats have insisted Republicans roll back their recently enacted Medicaid cuts and extend soon-to-expire health insurance subsidies, Levin praised them for making a strong play.
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“We will cheerlead them,” Levin told HuffPost. “We want them to hold strong,”
Indivisible and other influential progressive groups, including MoveOn, Public Citizen and the Service Employees International Union, are backing Democrats in a high-stakes standoff that appears likely to result in a partial shutdown of the federal government next Wednesday.
Republicans in Congress ignored Democrats’ health care demands before adjourning last week without having passed a bill to fund the government past the end of month. On Monday, President Donald Trump agreed to meet with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), the top Democrats in the House and Senate, only to call off the White House meeting the next day.
“What naming those demands has done is to cause Trump to escalate and pull out of the negotiations, which very clearly places the blame on him,” Levin said. “The Republicans are acting as if they’re throwing the steering wheel out of the window during this game of chicken.”
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In a social media post calling off the encounter, Trump said no meeting with Democrats “could possibly be productive,” adding that Democrats had “totally lost their way.”
Joel Payne, spokesman for MoveOn, said Trump bailing on the meeting boded well for Democrats’ strategy.
“I do think it demonstrates the point that Democrats have been making, that Trump and Republicans are not serious about preventing a shutdown. They’re not serious about working together,” Payne told HuffPost.
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“We and our membership are encouraged that Democrats seem to have steeled their spine a bit, and are showing a desire to fight, and specifically to fight for us,” Payne said. “If they fight for us and have our back, we’ll have their back, and I think so long as they continue to do that, I think that the grassroots will be with them.”
MoveOn this week partnered with the SEIU and Public Citizen on newsletter ads saying Republicans “would rather shut down the government than stop your health insurance premiums from going up.”
Millions of Americans will soon be warned of premium increases thanks to the December expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies that were expanded during the Joe Biden administration as part of a coronavirus relief law. Republicans have shown some openness to extended the subsidies in some form, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said it’s a policy question that should be handled in December, not September.
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Democrats have also demanded Republicans undo cuts to Medicaid they used to help offset the multitrillion-dollar cost of tax cuts they enacted this year. Republicans have shown no interest in undoing part of their signature legislation. Between the Medicaid cuts and the Affordable Care Act subsidies, the Congressional Budget Office has projected 15 million fewer Americans will have health insurance over the next decade.
Schumer and Jeffries have unleashed a torrent of statements this week, with the pace of commentary increasing after Trump’s switcheroo Tuesday on holding a meeting.
“With only six days until government funding lapses, Donald Trump and the GOP continue to march this country toward a painful Republican shutdown, while exacerbating the healthcare crisis that they have unleashed in America,” the pair said in a joint statement Wednesday morning.
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With both sides digging in, it’s not clear how a shutdown could be averted. Republicans control the House and Senate, but they have only 53 seats in the upper chamber and need 60 votes to pass funding legislation.
It’s usually Republicans, not Democrats, who use government funding as leverage. But progressive activists were furious in March when 10 Senate Democrats, including Schumer, voted for a funding bill instead of fighting the Trump administration, which at the time was taking unprecedented steps to dismantle federal agencies. Democrats seem determined to avoid a repeat.
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Levin said Democrats’ demands were reasonable.
“They’re wildly popular and easy to explain to the American public,” he said. “If the Republicans want to shut down the government in order to close more rural hospitals and take away Medicaid dollars from their recipients in their districts, they can do that.”