Republicans want to get rid of ‘Obamacare’, and raise insurance premiums by 100, 200, 300 percent. That’s why Republicans are blamed. They hold the House, the Senate, the Judiciary, and the Presidency. They will starve their constituents unless they’re allowed to take away their constituents’ health care.
The Republicans are wrong as they wont sit down and negotiate with the Democrats. If they did that, and made some compromise offer- and the Dems still balked, then it would be different. And the reason the MAGAs wont negotiate as they see this as a back-end way to kill “Obamacare” which is very popular with the voters, so they cant kill it in the open.
Yes, we understand the Filibuster rules. We also know that the GOP can- and has- changed those rules when they wanted to.
Add to that that Democrats have no reason to believe the Republican line of “pass a clean CR and we’ll negotiate healthcare later” when they’ve shown that they won’t stop Trump from illegally impounding funds and spending them however he wants.
There’s also this side wrinkle that’s holding things up.
If Mike Johnson convenes the House then elected Rep Adelita Grijalva [D, Ariz] will have to be sworn in, and…
Adelita Grijalva can force a vote on the Epstein files, but she’s still not sworn in
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/16/g-s1-93709/adelita-grijalva-mike-johnson-swearing-in
Somebody posted that last week. “We’re gonna starve your children until the Democrats let us raise your health insurance premiums.”
They’re in charge, so it’s their responsibility. They control the executive, legislative and judicial branches, which means that they effectively own the federal government, which makes them the ones responsible for making sure it works properly. If that means negotiating with the opposition, so be it.
The buck stops with the Republicans. Simple as that.
For better or worse, the US is set up so that you need 60 votes to pass this in the Senate. Votes are worth something. The Republicans need more votes than they have to pass this, so they need, absolutely need, at least a few Democratic votes. Why should those Democrats give away their votes for free? Because that’s what the Republicans are offering right now. “Give us your votes so we can do exactly what we want to do, with no consideration at all about what you want to do!” Who in their right minds would take such an offer?
The Democrats know that they can’t get everything they want, that’s the reality of not being the majority. But they can hold out for at least some of what they want. There’s literally no other reason for them to even show up at work, otherwise. If they’re just going to rubberstamp the majority’s plan anyways, you might as well change the rules so that they don’t need the 60 votes, only 51 votes.
We can debate the merits of needing 60 votes, but ultimately, if you keep it, it will be because you want to, or are at least willing to, let the minority party have just enough power to do exactly what the Democrats are doing right now.
I agree with this. I would just flesh out exactly what it means.
It means it’s not enough to open the Gov’t (fund SNAP, pay workers, etc.) for it’s own sake. That’s giving away “their votes for free”. Instead, the Democrats are using their minority power as leverage to get something else (ACA subsidies) passed, too. Right? It’s noble and I agree with it, but that’s what is happening.
Late: Why the Republicans won’t just negotiate is dumb. However, the calculation is eventually some will, or you get them on the record as not supporting ACA subsidies and run on that for the midterms. Eventually, you need to open the Gov’t and move on.
It’s because they feel the GOP should do something. They haven’t tried to negotiate. They haven’t tried to change the filibuster rules. All they’ve done is hold their breath, blame Democrats (which isn’t working), and wait for the Democrats to cave.
Democrats have been pretty clear what they are asking for: extension of the increased subsidies for ACA premiums, limitations on rescission, and a repeal of some of the Medicaid cuts. All the GOP has to do is say “we’ll give you the ACA subsidy extension but not the other stuff” and suddenly the calculus of blame changes. But when you very publicly make it “my way or the highway” then it’s normal that independents will blame the side making that statement for the impasse, particularly if the other side is saying “let’s negotiate”.
Now, I also think that there is a secondary motive for Democratic senators as well, which could attach “blame” depending on how you look at it. I think at least some of them (Schumer included, probably) would be perfectly happy with a rules change that only requires 51 vote for a CR. That would make their life much easier if and when they ever get a majority again, since a 60-vote Democratic majority seems like a pipe dream at least for the rest of my life. So the GOP breaking the glass on filibuster carve-outs is probably not a bad result for the Democratic caucus. It also attaches the consequences of the budget entirely to the GOP, rather than giving them the “Democrats voted for it too” cover.
I say the Republicans are to “blame” because their motivations are evil; they want to kill poor people by taking their health insurance away. That’s my subjective opinion on the matter, which is the only relevant kind. Objectively, it’s trivially true that both sides are equally to blame, since either could end the shutdown at any time by just surrendering.
No, the Democrats can end it by surrendering; the Republicans can end it by compromising. Not the same thing.
From the Republican POV compromise is surrender. If you like, for “surrender” read “make concessions they are not currently willing to make”.
It’s been explained multiple times in this thread that there’s nothing stopping the GOP from doing what Trump wants them to do and just ram it through with 51 votes. The only downside is that it sets a precedent that will likely be more helpful to Democrats in the long run, but Trump doesn’t care about the long term and nobody in the GOP caucus has the guts to stand up to him, so that’s probably how this eventually ends IMO.
OK, perhaps not? John Thune says there are “not even close” to enough votes to waive the filibuster rule.
I think they’re justified in this case. The compromise is with an opposition saying “we wont allow government to function unless we get a policy we want".
The GOP is now in the position that they haven’t generated the support for refusing to negotiate with hostage takers they would need to stay firm. Likely due to a combination of how popular that policy is and how much they’ve allowed themselves to be painted as willing to shoot the hostages.
But regardless of how they got here they’re now going to have to negotiate or kill the filibuster for budgets. And I still think they are entirely justified in doing the latter.
Because it’s that important to you to kill poor people?
No, I think killing poor people is bad and I think fighting to save poor people from death or bankruptcy is worth fighting dirty and turning a clean budget into a hostage negotiation.
But what is happening is that the democrats are turning a clean budget into a hostage negotiation. And it’s great that it’s working because either the country delivers for people who rely on the subsidy or the Republicans have to go it alone on taking it away and hopefully voters realize what Republicans do is cut healthcare to poor people rather than a bunxh of confusing words about stuff that happens in Washington DC.
That’s not hostage taking - that’s how government is SUPPOSED to work! Everybody compromises, everybody gets some of what they want, nobody gets everything they want.
Oh, OK, we agree then.
That’s how it was set up by the Founding Fathers. Opposing sides have been expected to compromise since the very beginning.