America's Talking - Democrats tank bipartisan bill to fund DOD in midst of government shutdown

Starting point is 00:00:00 Greetings and welcome to America's Talking, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulam, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Democrats in the U.S. Senate have now blocked Republican efforts to pass a continuing resolution to fund federal government operations 10 times. And on Thursday, they also blocked a Republican effort to fund the Department of Defense. The government remains in partial shutdown heading into its third week. Joining me to discuss this is the Center Square congressional reporter, Teres Boudreau. At this point, it seems like there's no end in sight to the shutdown. Tell us more. That's kind of a good way to put it, honestly. Hopes are not high right now.

Starting point is 00:00:39 It's been, so since senators are going home for the weekend, this is Friday morning, so they went home last night. That means the shutdown is going to last for at least 20 days. The record was 35 days at the end of 2018, going into 2019. But yeah, it's not looking good because negotiations are. are going nowhere. So the latest thing that happened in this, in this situation, is Democrats voted down a regular appropriations bill for the Department of Defense. So what happened was, what's been happening is that Democrats have voted down the continuing resolution, Republicans continuing resolution to fund the government, to reopen the government and to fund it for about seven weeks just to give them enough time to finish the normal appropriations bills that fund

Starting point is 00:01:30 the federal government every year. And Democrats have voted down 10 times now because they want different health care policies to be included in, if not the CR, then at least a deal. Specifically, they're worried about the enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits that were the ones that were boosted during the COVID-19. And those were expires. December 31st. And they want to take care of those now. And so they're keeping, they're not giving enough votes to reopen the government on Republican CR until they have a guarantee that some kind of health care legislation will pass. Now, Senate Majority waiter John Thune has said that he can promise that there will be a vote on the Obamacare subsidy extension or other health care, you know,

Starting point is 00:02:22 policy legislation. But he said, look, I can't, you know, I can't, you know, I can't tell you that it's going to pass. I can't guarantee that. This is a deliberative body. I'm not going to, you know, tell my constituents to vote one way or another. So that's not good enough for Democrats. And so what Thune decide to do next is, say, okay, if Democrats aren't going to vote for the continuing resolution unless I tell them that, you know, I will make sure that these health care policies are enacted, how about we just try to make some progress during this government shutdown on the. regular order, you know, full year appropriations bills and, you know, make sure that the military,

Starting point is 00:03:01 service members who are working right now, that they get pay. They would have missed their next paycheck, if not for the White House dipping into some, uh, research and development, untapped research and development savings, um, to pay them on October 15th. Um, but it's not, you know, nobody knows what they're going to do if this lasts until the end of the month when military members get paid again. So, Thune said, let's bring the annual appropriations Department of Defense bill to the floor. It's already passed the House. If it passes the Senate, then, you know, get that signed into law. And at least, you know, the Department of Defense's activities and the employees there and military service members can get paid and can get funded and will overt some of the worst effects of the shutdown.

Starting point is 00:03:49 But Democrats voted by a large margin. So at this point, Republicans, I mean, they've been pretty frustrated because, again, it's been, you know, it's going to be 20 days, you know, by next week. So they're pretty frustrated. And they're, they're, it's not looking good, let's just say. U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McHan said earlier this week that the government shut down, schools are still operating. There's been no issues with local school districts, et cetera. She said that's proof that the U.S. Department of Education is not needed. I think that goes to the larger point that until everyday Americans start feeling the impact of this shut, of course, it's impacting federal employees, right?

Starting point is 00:04:42 Outside of the Department of Defense, the military, many of them are not getting paid. They'll get back pay when this thing ends. But if it's not impacting everyday Americans, what pressure is there on Democrats to give in and fund the federal government? It seems to me that there's no great reason for it. Well, that's a really good question, actually, because that's what Democrats are kind of pinning their hopes to, right? there are other things that indirectly impact, indirectly impact Americans. So, you know, the economy loses 15 billion a day during the shutdown. There are, you know, flights are being, some flights are being delayed because air traffic

Starting point is 00:05:30 controllers are working about pay and some are calling in sick so that they can work side jobs because of that. But you're right in that it's not like, you know, people, people, people, people aren't getting their mail or they're, you know, not being able to get student loans or things like that. There are some Americans, if they're taking out home loans, you know, with their subsidized federal government, that'll affect them. But, you know, largely the average American might not even know we're in a shutdown at this point. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's a good question because it's most, the average American is not going to feel.

Starting point is 00:06:12 that much. And Democrats are saying that they have the leverage because millions of Americans will feel it if their health care premiums go up if the enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits expire. So they think that right now they have the high ground. But, I mean, so it remains to be seen whether they're going to fold. I think Republicans were a lot more hopeful that they were, that it wasn't going to last this long. I don't think they expected it to last this long at all. But, you know, with the IRS losing more and more workers, that maybe that will, you know, be another thing that causes enough consternation for Democrats to full. But it really doesn't look like at this point. I mean, it's, again, I've talked with people who don't even know we're in a government shutdown.

Starting point is 00:07:01 So it's, it's something to where there are some long-lasting economic impacts and things like that that people will feel later. But as of right now, Democrats are pretty comfortable. Trez, in the final seconds we have left, the Senate has gone home for the weekend, so there isn't going to be no progress over the weekend. What's the earliest they'd have another vote? I mean, well, the earliest they could have it would be Monday. There's, I'm also, it's uncertain whether Foon is going to bring another vote

Starting point is 00:07:34 on the Department of Defense bill again as well. You know, that could be something. There's also rumors that he's going to try. to attach to other appropriations bills onto that one to make a, they've already passed a minibus in the Senate before all this stuff happened. So if he makes another one and maybe tags on, you know, the funding for health and human services, then maybe they could fit some kind of health care deal into there. So there's rumors that there's some kind of movement going on there.

Starting point is 00:08:07 But you really don't know at this point. It's just waiting for Congress to get their act together. Guys, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with the government shutdown news and everything else at the Bcenter Square.com.

America's Talking - Democrats tank bipartisan bill to fund DOD in midst of government shutdown

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