Big news from yesterday that I did not see covered here: Senate Democrats came out swinging with a proposal to end the GOP Shutdown that was just what some of us have been asking for: a one-year extension in the ACA subsidies in exchange for Democratic votes for the Continuing Resolution (“CR”) to keep funding the federal government i.e. to end the Shutdown.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, widely reviled in these parts, announced the proposal on the Senate floor. And he sounded surprisingly smart and tough in doing so. Specifically, as the video indicates, he said that:
Democrats want to negotiate an end to the shutdown, and we want to respect Leader Thune’s desire not to negotiate on ACA until after the government reopens. Therefore, we’d like to offer a simple proposal that would reopen the government and extend the ACA premium tax credits simultaneously, and then have the opportunity to start negotiating longer term solutions to healthcare costs. Let’s do all three…. Leader Thune just needs to add a clean one-year extension of the ACA tax credits to the CR so that we can immediately address rising healthcare costs. That’s not a negotiation. It’s an extension of current law, something we do all the time around here.
As described by Schumer, the Democratic Senate proposal does several things effectively, both from a policy and a politics standpoint. First, it goes about as far as the Democrats could go with the ACA extension, given their minority status. Of course, Republicans would counter-offer less (and indeed immediately rejected the proposal, which is a sign that it is good for us), and my hope is that an extension of at least six months can be agreed upon. Second, it phrases things in a shrewd way by saying that Democrats are not asking for the ACA extension first, but rather at the same time as their voting for the CR, when in fact the ACA extension does come first because it has to be inserted into or added to the CR before the Democrats will give their votes. That has been the big difference all along with what Republicans offered, which was a vague and insincere promise to talk about the ACA only after the Democrats voted for the CR, which must be a non-starter. In this sense, Democrats smartly decoupled the ACA extension from “talking about healthcare”, demanding the first in order to do the second, while Republicans tried to make the ACA extension part of such future talks.
Third, the Democratic proposal sets a bit of a trap for Republicans. As Schumer stated (mirroring language I have used in comments here):
Since what we’re proposing is only a simple extension of current law, the Senate could do this within a few hours…. Now, the ball is in the Republicans’ court. We need Republicans to just say yes.
Now, I have previously called for Schumer to step down as Minority Leader. I still think he should do so, for numerous reasons that I and other DK folks have expressed. But if he leaves after making a strong proposal that hopefully results in the best deal to end the GOP Shutdown that the Democrats and the country realistically can get at this time, I have no problem with that.
