Dems Try to Add Last-Minute Poison Pill to Spending Package; Does This Mean Another Shutdown Is in Our Future?
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is proving once again that Democrats never met a government crisis they didn’t want to prolong — especially if it means protecting their sacred Obamacare subsidies.
Even as the nation reels from a 43-day government shutdown, Jeffries and his leadership ally, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), tried to slip in a partisan amendment to the GOP-backed spending bill that would extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits for three more years, according to The Hill.
Incredibly, Jeffries pitched this billion-dollar expansion of Obamacare as a gift to Republicans.
“Before the Rules Committee this evening, House Democrats will give the Republicans another opportunity to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits by introducing an amendment that will extend these tax credits for a three-year period of time,” Jeffries told reporters Tuesday night.
“Republicans have created a health care crisis all across America. You now have an opportunity to actually take some action by working with Democrats before the Rules Committee this evening to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credit.”
Unsurprisingly, the House Rules Committee rejected the amendment in the early hours of Wednesday morning, as reported by CBS News. Democrats’ attempts to hijack the must-pass spending bill failed along party-line votes, clearing the way for Republicans to finally move the legislation to the House floor and end the shutdown.
Republicans on the committee made their intentions clear from the outset: the marathon session wasn’t for grandstanding — it was about getting the government open again.
“The Rules Committee is convening to end, finally, the Democrat-induced-Chuck-Schumer-sponsored shutdown,” said Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC). “It has been over 40 days since we last sat in this room when Republicans advanced a responsible, nonpartisan, clean CR and all but one Democrat voted to shut the government down.”
Still, Jeffries’ maneuver exposes what’s really coming next: another performative political showdown over Obamacare — the same broken, bloated system that Democrats refuse to fix.
Instead of acknowledging that Obamacare’s subsidies have distorted markets, driven up premiums, and drained taxpayer dollars, Jeffries wants to lock in three more years of waste — setting the stage for yet another fiscal standoff down the road.
Democrats like Jeffries would rather grind the government to a halt than face reality. Forty-three days without pay for troops, air traffic controllers, and federal workers apparently wasn’t enough of a warning.
This latest stunt signals that Democrats are ready to use the same hostage tactics again — threatening another shutdown unless Republicans agree to pour more taxpayer money into the Affordable Care Act.
The truth is simple: Democrats launched this shutdown over an unachievable goal, punished the American taxpayer, and now appear ready to do it all over again.
If this is the starting point for future negotiations, Washington could be staring down another self-inflicted crisis within months — all because the Democratic Party refuses to admit that Obamacare is fundamentally broken.