Donald Trump doesn’t want a government shutdown in the list of things that happened in his first 100 days, and it looks like he’s going to get his wish. Because the House seems set to produce a bill that would provide funding for just long enough to push any possible shutdown past that deadline.
House Republicans on Wednesday night introduced a stopgap funding measure to keep the government open through May 5 while lawmakers work on a final agreement for legislation to fund the government through September.
At the moment, Trump and his Republicans have agreed to a funding bill that would not include funding on for Trump’s wall. But the bill is still laden with poison pills.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday evening that the funding bill under negotiation still has "70 poison pills" that the Democratic Party can't live with.
Pelosi has asked Mitch McConnell to ban poison pill riders on the appropriation bill, but McConnell has instead been McConnell. Meanwhile Paul Ryan seems determined to not include payments to the for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that are part of current law.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Wednesday came out against funding ObamaCare's cost-sharing reduction payments in the legislation, telling reporters, "We’re not doing that. That is not in the appropriation bill."
Despite Ryan’s statement, and continuing tweets from Donald Trump that attack ACA funding, the White House has supposedly signed off on agreeing to support the subsidies. To get that agreement, Democrats have already offered to support $15 billion more in military funding. Where that money would come from is unclear, but rules that Republicans previously enforced about not adding to the deficit seem to have vanished with the election of Trump.
Another week may provide time for poison pill removal, but it also allows time for fresh insertions. Plus it gives more time on stage for continued threats about shutting down the government over funding for the Affordable Care Act. And for more threats about shutting down the government so Republicans can keep whipping Puerto Rico.
“The Democrats want to shut government if we don't bail out Puerto Rico and give billions to their insurance companies for OCare failure. NO!” Trump tweeted Thursday.
Puerto Rico has been whipsawed by changing regulations they don’t get to vote on, pushing the island to what should be bankruptcy, except that Congress continues to deny the territory bankruptcy protection. What is Puerto Rico wanting to waste money on now?
According to news reports, Democrats have been pushing to help Puerto Rico cover a Medicaid shortfall. The U.S. territory is currently facing a multi-billion dollar debt crisis.
That Medicaid shortfall has been caused in part by the rapid expansion of Zika across Puerto Rico — an plague that Republicans consistently refused to address last year expressly as a slight to President Obama.