Republicans Extend the Olive Branch to Dems in Shutdown

To date, Republicans’ attempts to get Senate Democrats to agree to end the federal government shutdown are not working. But after weeks of putting their stopgap funding bill on the floor, Republicans are trying some new strategies.

Guaranteeing a Post-Shutdown Legislative Agenda

News broke Thursday that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is willing to give Democrats a vote on extending COVID-era Obamacare premium tax credits if that means they will reopen the government.

“We can guarantee you get a vote by a date certain,” Thune said in an interview with MSNBC. “At some point, Democrats have to take ‘yes’ for an answer.”

“I can’t guarantee it’s going to pass,” Thune added. “I can guarantee you that there will be a process, and you will get a vote.”

But even that offer didn’t spark Democrat enthusiasm.

“I haven’t confirmed that that’s an actual offer that has been made, but we’ve been very clear that we need to decisively address the Republican health care crisis,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in a separate interview with MSNBC, adding that Democrats “need an ironclad path forward.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., questioned about Thune’s remarks Thursday, said Democrats had rejected the proposal, demanding an absolute guarantee that the subsidies would be extended.

“Let me tell you what happened yesterday, because I met with leader Thune, and he offered to [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer a vote on Obamacare subsidies, and Schumer said ‘no.‘ That happened,” said Johnson. “Because they wanted a guaranteed outcome.”

He added: “The Obamacare subsidy issue is not the issue of today. It is a subsidy that expires December 31. We were always planning to continue the debate and discussion … . It’s a very complicated, complex matter. There are no income caps on that. By the way, did you know that if you’re a hardworking taxpayer … you are subsidizing wealthy people’s health care with that subsidy?”

Johnson explained that he and the rest of the Republican leadership are incapable of guaranteeing a result from Congress, a deliberative body.

“We have 535 members between the House and Senate. There’s a lot of people in this deliberative body here. That’s a very complicated issue. It’s not something that four people can go into a back room and guarantee an outcome on. It can’t be done,” he said.

Restoring Congress’ Appropriating Mojo

Another tactic that Senate Republicans are employing is continuing to bring appropriations bills to the floor amid the shutdown as an attempt to reawaken bipartisanship in the chamber.

In the Senate, leadership tried to break the impasse by teeing up a vote Thursday on a Department of Defense funding bill.

“If the Democrats can see the regular appropriations process running more smoothly, that might encourage them,” the Senate Appropriations Committee chairwoman, Rep. Susan Collins, R-Maine, recently said of the attempt to keep the funding process humming amid the shutdown. “If we can show that we can move the appropriations bills, there’s absolutely no justification or rationale for a government shutdown.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told The Daily Signal that the appropriations process had actually been working well before the shutdown and that talks continued despite partisan gridlock.

“The approps process has moved along really well. I mean, you can see all 12 bills came out of committee,” he told The Daily Signal. “[Top House appropriator Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.] and his members have done their job. And in fact, they had robust negotiations ongoing with Democrats—House and Senate—to resolve the differences on three of the bills.”

He continued, “The ability is there, and appropriators are still talking to each other to try to get an agreement on all 12 of the bills, but it’s hard for any of that while Schumer continues the shutdown.

If the Senate manages to eventually make progress on appropriations bills, it poses a question: Will Republican House leadership call their members back into sessions to resume work on appropriations amid the shutdown? Don’t count on it.

“Members are ready to get back to work when the government gets open again,” Scalise told reporters. “We just got to get the lights turned back on.”

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