Copyright talkingpointsmemo
I’m now seeing press reports confirming the chatter I’d heard through the afternoon, which is that Senate Democrats have offered to vote for a continuing resolution in exchange for a one-year extension of Obama subsidies and creating some kind of bipartisan kumbaya health-care negotiating group. There appears to be other budgetary stuff in there. It’s not clear to me whether there’s anything on rescissions. But the topline is the headline. Shutdown ends in exchange for a one-year extension of the Obamacare funding. I had heard that Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s answer was no. But Axios says the Senate caucus is meeting this afternoon to discuss the offer. When I first heard this news it sounded like a pretty weak position for the Democrats, sort of the most minimal concrete ask possible. But when I thought about it a bit more, I decided that wasn’t quite right. People get immediate relief after more than a month of headlines about Democrats demanding the relief. And a one-year extension places a new health care coverage cliff precisely in the days just before and after Election Day for the 2026 midterms, which puts this critical issue at the center of next year’s campaign. If a more permanent restoration isn’t agreed to before Election Day people will start getting notices about big premium hikes right about a week before Election Day. In electoral terms, I definitely get the logic. I would further push for undoing the new round of shutdown layoffs and killing the big infrastructure and energy projects in Blue states. I don’t know if that’s included. I’d demand several more things. But on the big picture item I see the logic of this. If Thune says no, well … let it play out longer. Trump was right in that tweet. The shutdown is a slo-mo disaster for Republicans and the White House. Trump’s approval numbers have been dropping steadily for a couple weeks. All the numbers crunchers agree on that. Drawing the obvious conclusion, the shutdown is hurting Trump and the GOP badly. I think they know that.
