Now it’s getting serious.
For the first couple weeks of the government shutdown it was almost a parlor game. Who would get the blame? Who would blink first? It was about strategy and maneuvering and messaging. Take your turn to roll the dice, move your piece on the board, pick a card.
Sure, there have been some delays at airports, but if you don’t fly much — and it’s not the holiday travel season yet — that wouldn’t necessarily impact you directly. Government workers aren’t getting paid and some of us who were government employees have empathy for them, but unfortunately there’s a lot of callousness out there when it comes to attitudes toward people who do public service.
But now two things are poised to happen. First, SNAP benefits (food stamps) are set to dry up starting on Saturday. A lot of Trump voters benefit from SNAP. Deep red states Louisiana, West Virginia and Oklahoma all have some of the highest SNAP participation rates in the country and the swing state of Pennsylvania isn’t far behind. The trouble for Democrats is that Trump voters are so dug in that they’ll never blame him. They’re far more likely to direct their anger at Democrats for not caving.
It’s the second issue that could work in Democrats’ favor. Also on Saturday people can start choosing plans under the Affordable Care Act and they’ll get some heavy sticker shock. Premium increases of $1,000 a month won’t be uncommon and, if you’re a 60-year old couple in rural America earning $130,000 you could see your payments go up by $3,000 a month. That’s hitting the middle class and hitting it hard.
It shouldn’t be lost on Republicans — and it probably isn’t — that even Marjorie Taylor Greene sides with the Democrats on this. (Actually, that’s an interesting thing in itself — Trumpy Republicans who are breaking with Trump to pursue a more pure form of populism. But we’ll explore that another day.)
And this is the very issue that Democrats have hammered away at as their reason for not supplying the votes that would help the Republicans end the shutdown. It’s true that the issue isn’t directly tied to the shutdown itself. These tax credits were set to expire this year independent of this shutdown. In fact, Republicans want to have it both ways, saying they’ll negotiate on the premiums but only after Democrats give up their leverage by voting to put the government back to work. But the issue has to be resolved now or what is set to happen this weekend will, in fact, happen. So, Democrats were right to make it the centerpiece of their shutdown argument now. And it may pay them political benefits.
Maybe. It comes down to persuadable voters. Trump believers who benefit from “Obamacare” will never credit Obama for its creation or blame Trump for driving their premiums into the stratosphere. But Trump won the last election in large part because people who didn’t love him were worried about the cost of living. And when things get worse, not better, they’re likely to blame whoever’s in the White House.
For the actual human beings among us, seeing federal workers struggle to make ends meet without a paycheck, seeing families struggle to put food on the table and witnessing health insurance premiums crushing middle class families is enough to make us demand that our representatives resolve their differences and get the government back up and running. The undeniable tangible human costs of these abstract political strategies is about to become abundantly clear.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
Yay Democracy! Is it a bug or a feature?
But wait – we have a King! Can’t he just solve it by decree?
It’s funny how government workers are all so damn noble but if the private sector goes through layoffs there’s crickets from the media. Amazon just laid off tens of thousands. Locally Trustage has had multiple rounds of layoffs- believe it or not these people had families to feed as well.
Where was the media with all the personal stories?
Now unlike “No Kings” which was mostly well off people virtue signaling if SNAP stops and health insurance premiums go through the roof we will see the shit legitimately hit the fan. I’d love to see an agreement to keep SNAP going provided all junk food is prohibited. Won’t happen the junk food lobby is too powerful. Yay Democracy!
LikeLiked by 1 person
“there’s crickets from the media. Amazon just laid off tens of thousands.”
That’s rich considering I learned about that story yesterday from an article in the “establishment” media (it was also a top headline on PBS): https://apnews.com/article/amazon-layoff-ai-14000-artificial-intelligence-cb64af47ebb794541fbdfa8fd264932c
Even the Bezos owned Washington Post ran an article on it highlighted in the “trending” banner on their homepage.
“we have a King! Can’t he just solve it by decree?“
Please. Trump has continually pushed the boundaries of executive power and violated norms left and right, but now we’re supposed to believe he can’t tap emergency funds to help feed the poor because of some arcane opinion issued by USDA? Can’t? More like won’t.
LikeLike
As I said,
“Where was the media with all the personal stories?”
Government cutbacks get framed as individual tragedies. Private company cutbacks are just statistics.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have to say that at least today’s AP story on the Amazon and Target layoffs did support One’s point. Those stories were cast in purely macro economic terms with nothing about the personal cost to those laid off. Only one story, of course, but now that One has pointed it out I tend to think he’s basically right.
LikeLike
“Government cutbacks get framed as individual tragedies. Private company cutbacks are just statistics.”
‘Twas ever thus
LikeLike
I don’t think a dictatorship would be preferable. The problem isn’t democracy, it’s capitalism 😉 None of these problems would be happening if rich people didn’t have disproportionate power.
LikeLike
Not a dictatorship, a Monarchy! Admittedly we’d be playing with fire.
You may be right about capitalism. China’s version of it is a good test but we will all be dead before the final verdict is rendered.
LikeLike
Republicans tried to wreck the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) by simply letting the premium subsidies lapse, and of course, their legislation to keep the government open for several more minutes makes no mention of the subsidies. They have tried to get rid of the ACA for years, yet have no health care solution of their own, and never have.
Democrats were forced to take this route or risk losing what little leverage they have in future negotiations. They chose correctly, but what about the next spending bill, and the next?
LikeLike
“…demand that our representatives resolve their differences and get the government back up and running.”
I’m not positive that enough Rs want a functioning government in the first place. Remember, the goal is to reduce government to a size that it can be drowned in a bathtub. From that perspective, it seems that shutdowns are a good thing, not bad.
LikeLike
“Government cutbacks get framed as individual tragedies. Private company cutbacks are just statistics.”
For some reason this page isn’t allowing me to directly respond to the comments by Dave and One Eye – but I would dispute the assertion above. In fact I would argue there’s almost a sub-genre of media coverage and non-fiction literature out there dedicated to traveling to hallowed out post-industrial towns interviewing former manufacturing workers who lost there jobs due to corporate consolidations, free-trade, off-shoring, etc. I remember many such interviews in the local media with Oscar Mayer workers who were losing their jobs when the OM plant closed here a few years back.
Just a few examples:
https://captimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/its-a-part-of-us-as-quitting-time-approaches-at-oscar-mayer-madison-assesses-the/article_74afb140-e1f8-582b-9fad-ace22274c713.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zy9K8xes5g
LikeLike
Fair point.
Corporate layoffs in general used to be a big deal. A guy named Al Dunlap ran Sunbeam in the late 90s and famously said if you want a friend get a dog. He earned the nickname “Chainsaw” by doing layoffs unheard of at the time.
Now it’s just standard practice and people have become immune to the human suffering behind the layoffs. I think that will happen with the government layoffs eventually.
LikeLike