Copyright Everett Herald
By The Herald Editorial Board Americans, over the last 39 days, have received a clear reminder on the reach of the federal government into our daily lives. In the early days of the government shutdown — brought on by an impasse in Congress over passage of a continuing budget resolution — you likely told yourself you could cope with a paucity of staff at national parks and unanswered phones at federal agencies, especially since the mail was still arriving in mail boxes, Social Security deposits were still making it into checking accounts and veterans were still receiving their dearly-earned benefits. Yet the pain has increased in recent weeks: • More than 1 million federal employees and contractors — some of them deemed essential and required to work even without pay — have missed one and now two paychecks. A federal law is supposed to assure back pay for those workers but as recently as this week the Trump administration called that guarantee into question, despite the fact that President Trump signed that legislation into law during his first administration. • Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for 42 million of your neighbors weren’t loaded onto debit cards at the start of this month, depriving them of a significant part of their monthly food budget and shifting an immense burden onto community food banks. A federal judge has ordered the full and immediate restoration of the benefits — rather than the partial resumption that the Trump administration claimed it had funding for — but the government has asked an appeals court to stay the judge’s order. • Similarly harming low-income families, scores of the nation’s 1,600 Head Start programs, serving some 715,000 children, have been shuttered for lack of federal funding, with more closures looming as the shutdown drags on. • And on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the nation’s airlines to trim up to 10 percent of their domestic flights over the coming week to reduce demand on the nation’s air-traffic control system, again staffed by professionals who are working without pay, with some calling in sick and others turning to second jobs in their off hours to make ends meet. Federal workers, already wary of a Trump administration and its DOGE fiasco that made arbitrary and damaging cuts to federal jobs, might have set aside savings ahead of the shutdown to help them make rent or mortgage payments and support their families. Court orders may eventually force the government to restore benefits during the shutdown. Likewise, Americans can be expected to pitch in to help families in their communities supplement the support that’s been suspended. But now less than three weeks before Thanksgiving — a holiday that celebrates family and abundance — those stopgap measures will be tested and further strained each day the shutdown continues. Clearly, the shutdown must end, but finding a deal that ends the impasse still appears as distant as it ever has. Basically, the disagreement falls over passage of a continuing resolution (CR) that would temporarily fund the government, allowing it to reopen, assistance programs to be restored and federal workers to resume duties and be paid. Republicans want that legislation passed as a “clean” bill, meaning it would not be encumbered with additional measures, leaving any other issues for separate legislation and debate. Democrats, however — noting that federal tax credits for the Affordable Care Act will end as of Dec. 31, triggering steep increases for health insurance coverage costs on the ACA’s marketplace — have sought a restoration of those subsidies as part of an agreement to vote for the CR. Republicans, reluctant to end the Senate filibuster that requires 60 votes for passage of legislation, need to get eight Senate Democrats to sign on. Over the course of 15 votes in the Senate on the budget stopgap, no more than three Democrats have voted to approve the measure. Without passing judgment on either position, Republicans have pointed to the pain of the shutdown and sought immediate passage of a “clean” continuing resolution, offering to discuss the ACA tax credits separately, while Democrats have demanded language to restore the ACA subsidies to avoid significantly adding to the health care costs of 24 million Americans who rely on the ACA assistance. Trust among Democrats that a Republican-led Senate and House, as well as President Trump, will negotiate and agree to a separate deal for ACA tax credits is as shallow as a puddle in August. To offer a seasonal metaphor, consider the running gag in Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip and animated specials where Lucy implores Charlie Brown to trust her to hold a football for him to kick, only to pull the ball away at the last second, sending Charlie Brown into a full somersault with an exasperated “Auugh!” before landing flat on his back. You can hear Democrats once again muttering “Good grief!” just as they sign on to a “clean” CR. Even so, as recently as this week, Democrats and Republicans had been in talks, with Republicans offering a vote on ACA subsidies as part of an agreement. By Friday, Democrats had rejected that deal, citing mistrust in Trump and Republicans to negotiate an extension of ACA subsidies in good faith. Also on Friday, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Democrats now sought a one-year extension of the tax credits as part of a deal to reopen the government. Considering Democrats’ sweep in Tuesday’s off-year elections and strong public support for extension of the ACA tax credits — a KFF poll finds that 74 percent of the public supports their extension, as do 94 percent of Democrats — there seems to be little pressure for them to come within 10 yards of any “clean” football. Yet this must be resolved; for the sake of Americans and the sake of Congress itself. As explained in an article for The Conversation and published today in The Herald by Charlie Hunt, an associate professor of political science at Boise State University, Congress in recent years has abdicated many of its constitutional powers to the executive branch, including the powers to declare war, levy taxes and determine how that tax revenue will be spent. “Throughout the shutdown battle, Congress — particularly the House of Representatives — has been unwilling to assert itself as an equal branch of government,” Hunt writes. “Beyond policymaking, Congress has been content to hand over many of its core constitutional powers to the executive branch.” And the U.S. House, at the insistence of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has only cemented that notion of fecklessness, now having kept the House out of session for 50 days. Add in recesses in August and July, and the House has been in session only 12 of the last 109 days. (Do we dare note that members of Congress haven’t missed a paycheck because of the shutdown?) That abdication, Hunt warns, is a recipe for an unaccountable president “running wild without the constitutionally provided oversight and checks on power that the founders provided to the people through their representation by the first branch of government.” Congress — with the midterm elections now less than a year away and every member of the House and about a third of the Senate up for reelection — must show its worth to the American people. That can only start with a restart of government.
