The pain of the 30-day government shutdown is expected to worsen in the coming days, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the vast majority of his Democratic Caucus have thus far refused to fund the government until their demands are met.
More than 40 million Americans will not receive federal food aid on Nov. 1 without congressional action due to a lack of funding. With Americans’ food stamps on the verge of expiring and a popular nutrition and breastfeeding program for low-income women running out of money this weekend, some Republicans are optimistic that Democrats are close to folding due to mounting public pressure.
“First 26, 27 days [of the shutdown], Democrats have been able to get away with this nonsense because most people in this country haven’t noticed, because they haven’t been impacted,” Majority Whip Tom Emmer, the third-ranking House Republican, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview Wednesday. “That’s changing this week.”
Some Democrats are acknowledging the shutdown’s pain is getting worse for their constituents as the funding lapse reaches the one-month mark. Republicans need to convince just five additional Senate Democrats to vote for a House-passed bipartisan spending bill to end the shutdown.
“It is more frustrating every day that we can’t resolve this,” Democratic Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper told the DCNF on Tuesday. “People are suffering. It gets a little worse every week.”
Hickenlooper has consistently voted with Schumer to keep the government shuttered until Republicans agree to their various health care policy demands. The Colorado Democrat voted against a bipartisan clean stopgap bill to reopen the government for a 13th time on Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees — from Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents to Capitol Police officers — have not received their paychecks during the shutdown. The prolonged funding lapse has also disrupted the processing of small business loans, access to national parks and air travel across the country.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a 75-minute ground stop at Newark Liberty International Airport, a major northeastern hub, on Wednesday, citing staffing issues due to the government shutdown.
Democratic New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim told the DCNF he wants to prevent air traffic controllers from becoming “collateral damage” in the shutdown despite voting against a bipartisan funding measure to pay them on 13 separate occasions.
Amid the shutdown’s mounting impacts, one Democratic lawmaker appears to be ratcheting down their demands to reopen the government.
Democratic Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, who has thus far followed Schumer’s hardball tactics in the government funding fight, said the shutdown would end if Democrats get a vote on extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the year’s end and Thune forms a health care-focused “working group” to tackle rising health care costs.
“Give us a vote on the ACA tax credits,” Rosen told the DCNF in a brief interview on Wednesday. “They can say people don’t want to extend or not, they let them fall of the cliff. People can vote where they need to be. Give us a vote on that. And then put together a working group. Give us some benchmarks and some ways that we can treat people with dignity, so they have the dignity of health care insurance policy and be able to go get their prescriptions.”
Democrats’ costly counter-proposal to fund the government also called for $1 trillion in new Medicaid spending, the reversal of previous cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting, and restrictive language curtailing the president’s spending powers.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune notably offered Democrats a vote on the expiring subsidies weeks ago with the condition they fund the government first.
Other Democrats aligned with the party’s far-left flank are signaling their desire to keep the government shut down well into November.
“If Democrats bend the knee to Donald Trump, what assurances does anyone have that Americans will get the food they need, the health care they need, the education they need,” Democratic Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren told the DCNF. “The answer is none.”
Republicans are betting that Americans whose lives are affected by the shutdown will throw a wrench into those plans.
“People all over the country are fed up,” Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott told the DCNF.
“We just got to keep the pressure on the Democrats,” Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said. “They admit themselves that this is the only way they got leverage. You don’t hurt people with your leverage.”
Caden Olson contributed to this report.
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