Democrats said today they’ll need more than a guaranteed vote on extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies beyond this year before voting to reopen the government. GOP senators, meanwhile, rejected their adversaries’ pleas for any negotiations before the government reopens.
Here’s what people on both sides are saying:
GOP Sen. John Cornyn said he thinks Democrats need “some sort of face-saving device here, because they have gotten themselves into a box canyon, and apparently can’t find their way out.”
“If we capitulate to their outrageous demands now, can you imagine what it’ll be like then? I mean, this is bad behavior. It’s overreach on their part, and they need to reopen the government,” Cornyn told CNN’s Manu Raju.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal told Raju that he wouldn’t “rule out” a one-year extension of the credits, but said his “preference” is to “confront this issue right now and extend it for more than one year.”
“(Republicans) are saying right now they won’t negotiate. But that position is unsustainable. It’s untenable in democracy for one side to say our way or the highway. That’s just not the way our democracy works,” he said.
In a sign of how difficult it could be to get Democrats on board with the promise of an ACA subsidies vote with no guaranteed outcome, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would be “glad” to vote on a bill, but he said would oppose extending the credits, calling former President Obama’s signature healthcare law the “Unaffordable Care Act.”
GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt defended the Trump administration’s moves to cut back the federal workforce amid the shutdown, telling Raju, “eventually this Democrat obstruction is going to reach the place where people are going to get fired.”
