Copyright The Daily Beast
The House voted to end the record-long government shutdown on Wednesday after rushing back to Washington, DC to vote on the Senate bill. The next stop is President Donald Trump’s desk. House members came back to the nation’s Capitol for just one day to vote 222 to 209 on Day 43 of the shutdown after members were out on recess for eight weeks as Speaker Mike Johnson refused to call an end to their recess until the Senate voted to reopen the government. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday called the shutdown “completely and utterly foolish and pointless” and blamed Democrats for repeatedly voting against the GOP bill 15 times in the Senate. However, the majority of Democratic lawmakers are livid that some members were willing to vote for a plan in the end that does not ensure their health care demands are addressed. Progressive Rep. Ro Khanna warned premium hikes will be a death sentence for some Americans on Wednesday. “We need to meet the moral moment, and we didn’t,” he lamented. Millions of Americans are set to see their health insurance costs skyrocket at the end of the year if Congress does not act. The deal to end the shutdown did not guarantee the extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits as Democrats had been calling for throughout the entire shutdown. The Senate promised a vote on a health care bill from Democrats as part of the agreement but it is not clear whether any proposal will pass. House Democrats on Wednesday introduced their own legislation to extend the ACA subsidies for three years, and Jeffries said they will attempt for force a vote by using a discharge petition. Johnson has said House Republicans have other ideas to address health care and has not committed to even holding a vote on the Senate bill should it pass. Despite years of talk, Republicans have yet to reveal their own plan to address health care. Progressives have been calling for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down after eight members of his caucus caved even though he voted “no” in the Senate. Fellow New Yorker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted Senate Democrats who caved on Wednesday, but she argued the problem is “bigger than one person” when asked whether Schumer should step down. The end of the government shutdown means hundreds of thousands of federal workers who had been working without pay will start receiving paychecks again as well as back pay. Flight disruptions continue as the TSA struggles with staffing shortages amid the government shutdown, but cancellations and delays are expected to ease before the busy holiday season. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle took issue with an eleventh hour provision that would allow senators to sue the government for $500,000 each for investigators searching their phone records without notifying them. Republicans were outraged after eight of them had phone records seized during Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. The provision is retroactive to 2022 giving those who were subpoenaed by investigators the apparent ability to sue. While House Democrats attempted to have the provision nixed from their version of the bill, Republicans blocked the amendment. The bill made it through the House Rules Committee without changes, so it would not have to go back to the Senate again before receiving Trump’s signature.
