Let’s Do This: Here is What is Really at Stake in the Government Shutdown
The cost of health insurance is important, but something else is happening here
The government shutdown is upon us. Below this related action, which you do not need to take if you have already done it, I have some analysis on what I believe is really at stake in this fight.
Note: Sending these letters may result in receiving emails from allied Democratic and progressive organizations. For frequently asked questions about letter campaigns such as these, please see the notes below this article.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Senate voted 55-45 in favor of the continuing resolution passed by House Republicans to keep the government running at current funding levels for another seven weeks. However, because bills such as these need 60 votes to pass the Senate, it was defeated on both occasions. As a result, the government partially shut down when the clock struck 12:01 AM Eastern on October 1.
It is important to emphasize that the government has only partially shut down. As this lengthy explainer from Politico shows, “Government shutdown 2025: A guide to what’s still open, what’s closed and what’s fuzzy,” most government functions are actually still operating. Gabe Fleisher of Wake Up To Politics also has a good explainer that is worth a read.
Ostensibly, the government has shut down because Democrats are demanding that Republicans take action to address a looming increase in the cost of health insurance. This increase will be caused by the expiration of enhanced Obamacare subsidies passed in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, and extended through December 31, 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The Commonwealth Fund has a good explainer that will help you better understand the enhanced subsidies, which primarily go to lower income households who purchase their health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges.
The cost of health insurance is an important issue, and this coming cost increase could impact tens of millions of people. Extending the enhanced subsidies is both popular and the right thing to do. There has even been some openness to extending the subsidies, with new conditions attached, from some Republicans in Congress. Further, the expiring subsidies would likely not be receiving much news coverage at all if Democrats had not shut down the government over their pending expiration. Taking a drastic action like this was likely the only way to draw national attention to it.
However, to be entirely honest with you here, I don’t actually think that the subsidies are really what this shutdown is about. Instead, what I believe is motivating Democrats is the unwillingness of Donald Trump to promise to adhere to any deal on spending levels that he makes with Democrats. Donald Trump wants Democratic votes to keep the government fully open, but he is refusing to honor any deal with Democrats in exchange for those votes.
Specifically, the Trump administration is engaging in spending freezes and impoundment of funds that were passed by Congress and signed into law by Donald Trump himself. The Trump administration has frozen hundreds of billions of dollars of spending that was approved by Congress and signed into law. Further, Donald Trump is refusing to rule out continuing to freeze funds that are passed in any new deal he makes with Democrats to keep the government open. That refusal, more than anything else, is why the government is shutting down. The vast majority of Democrats are refusing to give Trump their votes to keep the government open because he is refusing to honor any deal he makes with them.
Republicans in Congress are accurately pointing out that Democrats repeatedly demanded that Republicans vote for continuing resolutions that are almost identical to the one that Republicans are now demanding Democrats support. And … that’s true! This happened 13 times during the Biden administration, as Gabe Fleisher pointed out yesterday. Enough Republicans in Congress swallowed all 13 of those resolutions to keep the government fully open the entire time that Joe Biden was president.
However, what makes this situation different is the refusal by the Trump administration to honor any spending deal that is passed by Congress and signed into law, even though the president doing the signing will be Donald Trump himself. The Biden administration honored spending deals passed by Congress and signed into law. It did not unilaterally freeze funds or engage in pocket rescissions. It also never pursued party-line rescissions of any sort. While Democrats demanded that Republicans swallow a baker’s dozen continuing resolutions, the Biden administration stuck to those continuing resolutions and did not try to unilaterally alter them. That is why this fight is different.
The reason I think Democrats have chosen to focus on health care in their public messaging, instead of on spending freezes, impoundment and rescission, is that the cost of health care matters to a lot of voters, is an issue that polls well for Democrats, and is relatively easy to explain. By contrast, talk of the filibuster, impoundment, rescission, and checks and balances is just going to result in a lot of eyes glazing over. None of that will work in a public messaging fight, even if that is the real issue at stake. Perhaps that has a slight whiff of dishonesty about it, but I for one am not upset over it.
How long can Democrats hold out? Honestly, I don’t know. Three members of the Democratic caucus, Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Independent Angus King of Maine, have already voted to keep the government open without any promise from the Trump administration to honor spending deals passed by Congress (although, it should be noted, Fetterman always votes to keep the government open). Apparently, the two Democratic senators from New Hampshire, Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, are also wavering. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York might also be on the fence. In all three cases, these Democratic senators seemed to need a lot of convincing from other Democrats to vote to (partially) shut down the government on Tuesday.
Shutting down the government is not an easy sell to Democrats. For one thing, there are a lot of different ways of polling about this issue, but no poll shows a majority of the public either in favor of a government shutdown or willing to blame only Republicans for it. While most polls show that pluralities will blame Republicans more than Democrats, probably because the political mood in the country leans blue right now, there is also a large chunk that will blame both parties. Further, Democrats like the idea of making government work for people, and shutting down the government is the literal opposite of that. Programs like WIC are going to run out of funding next week, even as Trump makes sure that all of his priorities continue to run full steam ahead. Also, government shutdowns have no history of the party making demands extracting concessions, although admittedly there have not been many data points to consider and Trump is always something of a wildcard.
Even so, what is really at stake here is a question of self-respect. Trump is demanding that Democrats vote for a spending deal that Trump is then refusing to honor. Agreeing to terms like that is exactly the sort of humiliation that Trump is trying to extract from numerous countries, universities, businesses and media outlets. I completely understand why the vast majority of Democratic senators do not want to cast a vote under conditions like that, no matter how crappy and politically ineffective government shutdowns really are.
If you agree, here is a related action you can take. Please see my notes on the action below the article.
Notes on letter campaigns:
Sending these letters may result in receiving emails from allied Democratic and progressive organizations.
Your message may be received better by your members of Congress if you slightly alter the subject line and letter text.
You do not have to use the pre-written letter. You can write your own letter, if you wish.
In order to send your letter, you will have to choose a topic. However, topic lists are maintained by each congressional office, and thus I do not know which topics you will have to choose from. You will have to use your best judgement.
After you send your letters, you will be redirected to an ActBlue page for Bowers News Media. However, no donation is required, and if you see this page your letters have already been sent.