Op Ed By Congressman Josh Brecheen
On September 19th, 215 members of the Republican conference and I voted for a clean continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded at existing levels through November 21st. By passing a CR without any poison pill policy changes, House Republicans ensured the federal government could remain open until Congress decided on longer-term funding.
If signed into law, our CR would have ensured our troops and federal employees did not miss a single paycheck. Instead, the CR sits in the Senate, where nearly every Democrat has voted against it multiple times. Liberals are not being forthright towards the American people when they insist Republicans are to blame for this shutdown simply because we have the majority in the House and Senate. What they conveniently leave out is that Senate rules require funding bills to receive approval from 60 of the 100 Senators. With the current Senate breakdown, Republicans hold 53 seats, meaning at least 7 Democrats must vote for the CR for it to pass.
Let us not forget that, despite initially asking for a clean CR and voting for CRs (at enhanced COVID-era/Biden levels) 13 times over the last several years, all but four Democrats (three Senators and one Representative) have voted against reopening the government and are now demanding, through their legislative alternative, an extra $1.5 trillion in new spending. By refusing to vote alongside Republicans, Democrats are responsible for this shutdown and its consequences. If it only took Republicans to pass this legislation, we would have reduced total spending because COVID is over. But because Democrat votes are needed, a clean CR, with enhanced COVID levels of spending, is the bipartisan measure that they now refuse to vote for.
Left-wing media and politicians claim the government has been shut down due to a healthcare fight, but they leave out the fact that, in 2021, it was the Democrat majority that set the COVID-era healthcare subsidies to expire at the end of this year, acknowledging they were deficit spending dependent and too expensive to maintain long term. Liberals don’t want to admit that Obamacare is responsible for the increased healthcare costs, but the facts are clear. Since its passage in 2010, family health insurance premiums have increased 92% (today’s employer-based annual health premiums for a family of four stand above $25,500, while these premiums were $13,700 prior to Obamacare). This is far surpassing the rate of inflation.
Democrats want no changes to their now expiring enhanced COVID-era subsidies. Congress should not keep throwing more money at the UNAFFORDABLE Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), as it is causing problems that subsidies cannot overcome. Insurance companies, not patients, are the biggest beneficiaries of these enhanced COVID-era healthcare subsidies–a fact easily seen when understanding that roughly 40% of enrollees in these fully subsidized plans had no claims in 2024, despite taxpayers spending at least $35 billion on insurers. To bring down healthcare costs, we must reduce the middlemen, the distance that government and insurance have created between patients and doctors, not further it. Congress must think outside the box to find the root cause and address it, rather than further the problem. This requires an Obamacare overhaul that the liberals don’t want.
Despite their claims that the shutdown is the result of healthcare concerns, many liberals know that this isn’t true. As the left-leaning New York Times’ chief political analyst stated, “The Democratic Party’s activist base demanded a shutdown because it wanted Democrats to do something to oppose Mr. Trump, not because of particular concerns about expiring health care subsidies.”
Rather than work with Republicans, Democrats like Senator Chuck Schumer, who is scared of a primary from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have decided it is more politically advantageous to close the government than work across the aisle. Evidence of this power-hungry move is in Schumer’s own words, where he brags that “every day gets better” despite previously arguing that it is “average Americans who suffer the most” in shutdowns.
If the Liberals get their way, average Americans will continue to suffer as the Democrats’ demands would take over $9,000 from every taxpayer ($1.5 trillion total) to fund a litany of policies the American people don’t support. This includes funding for transition surgeries and reallocating $200 billion in tax dollars to give illegal aliens healthcare (see page 57 of the Democrats’ legislative alternative, where they change the law and end legal status verification processes). According to a memo from the White House, additional demands in the Democrat list of requirements for reopening the government are proposals to:
- Allow illegals to receive Medicaid;
- Require Medicaid to fund illegal alien healthcare at a rate higher than for Americans;
- Provide an Obamacare subsidy for non-citizens that Americans are not eligible for;
- Repeal $50 billion from the rural healthcare fund; and,
- Remove 10 million Health Savings Accounts from Americans.
Holding funding for the military hostage as part of their $1.5 trillion demand is reckless. Recognizing that our troops should not be used as pawns in the Democrats’ political battle, President Trump has directed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth “to use all available funds to pay the troops on October 15th.” If Democrats continue to drag out the shutdown, here are financial resources to help servicemembers and other furloughed federal workers navigate it:
- NFCU
- USAA
- PenFed Credit Union
- Andrews Federal Credit Union
- Army Emergency Relief
- Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society
- Coast Guard Mutual Assistance
- Commerce Department Credit Union
- S. Employees Credit Union
- Federal Employee Education and Assistance Fund
- American Bankers Association
With all this in mind, I urge my Democrat colleagues in the Senate to stop playing political games with America’s well-being and vote to reopen the government.
