WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming on Thursday unleashed his harshest and loudest rhetoric yet on the government shutdown, as Democrats yet again defied his prediction that they will give the GOP their votes without getting any concessions.
In mid-morning floor remarks, a thundering Barrasso said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York is beholden to the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party, a faction “who will never be satisfied until this country is destroyed.”
Later Thursday, Senate Democrats voted for the seventh time against the GOP’s House-passed, short-term measure to fund the government for a matter of weeks while talks on annual appropriations continue.
Republicans control the Senate but fall short of the supermajority needed to move spending bills — including the GOP’s stopgap legislation at issue now, which is called a continuing resolution, or CR.
The Democrats repeated Thursday their demands for the GOP to negotiate on extending soon-to-expire Obamacare tax credits as part of any CR deal, saying failure to prolong the credits will send health care premiums skyrocketing for millions of Americans.
What Barrasso Said
Barrasso on Thursday seized on a comment Schumer made in an interview with Punchbowl News the day before. In the context of momentum in the shutdown standoff, Schumer said: “Every day gets better for us.”
On an easel, Barrasso put up a poster with Schumer’s image along with the quote — and then proceeded to unload:
“‘Every day gets better for us.’ … Who is us? Not better for the American people. Who does he mean by us? Not the military who’s not getting paid, not the Border Patrol that’s not getting paid, not the air traffic controllers who aren’t getting paid. Who is us? He’s playing a game. …
“‘Every day gets better for us.’ Who in the world is us? It is this group that has organized the shutdown. They’ve talked about having an orchestrated group of the far-left wing, the terrorist wing, of the Democrat Party organizing and orchestrating the shutdown. …
“This weakness defines today’s Democrat Party. They are radical, they are extreme, they are dangerous, they are scary, they are out of touch. …”
Barrasso added that Americans are hurting “so that Schumer can try to satisfy the far-left liberal wing of the Democrat Party who will never be satisfied until this country is destroyed.”
Not Naming Names
Barrasso did not name any Democrats in his Thursday remarks. Cowboy State Daily asked his media relations team exactly which ones he was referring to as part of the “terrorist wing,” and, whether he stood by the “terrorist” label.
Spokeswoman Laura Mengelkamp declined to identify anyone, saying only that Barrasso meant “the far-left activists who put the needs of illegal immigrants ahead of the needs of the American people.” She did not walk back the term “terrorist.”
Though Mengelkamp did not refer to any specific issues, Republicans including Barrasso have said frequently in recent days that Democrats’ demands in the shutdown battle include giving free health care to illegal immigrants. Democrats vigorously deny that claim.
Shutdown Background
The GOP-led House on Sept. 19 passed the CR on a nearly party-line vote. In the Senate, the Republicans hold 53 seats but need a supermajority of 60 votes to get it through.
Senate Democrats, who were shut out on major legislation this year that only required a simple majority of votes in that chamber, are using their leverage now to seek concessions.
The first two Senate votes held on the House-passed CR were Sept. 19 and Sept. 30, the latter being the last day for keeping funds flowing into the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
On the Senate floor Oct. 1 — the first day of the shutdown — Barrasso noted three Democrats broke ranks in the Sept. 30 vote. Promising to bring the bill back repeatedly, Barrasso predicted more defections would follow.
But that has not happened in the five votes held after Sept. 30. Only U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Angus King of Maine have crossed the aisle. King is an independent but caucuses with Democrats.
Plus, the GOP has a defector of its own: U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. He says even current funding levels, which the CR would maintain into November, are too high.
That leaves Barrasso and the rest of Senate leadership needing eight Democrats total to cross the aisle in order to break the shutdown impasse, assuming Paul, a hardline fiscal conservative, maintains his position.
Affordable Care Act
Senate Democrats are asking for concessions beyond an extension of the Obamacare tax credits. But those Affordable Care Act credits have become their emphasis.
Democrats have said repeatedly that health insurance premiums for millions of Americans will double or triple if those credits, established in 2021, are not extended past Dec. 31.
Barrasso has called those credits “Biden’s bonus COVID payments” and said they were always meant to be temporary, adding that an extension would cost taxpayers $350 billion over 10 years.
Partisan Moves
Senate Republican Leader John Thune of South Dakota has said repeatedly that the GOP will negotiate with Democrats — but only after the minority party helps pass the GOP’s CR.
Democrats counter that Republicans have refused for months to negotiate on the Obamacare credits or other matters. Schumer has said talks on full-year appropriations bills are badly stalled, and that passing a short-term CR and restarting those talks would ignore the underlying stalemate.
Moreover, Democrats are wary of congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump, because the GOP has used its control of Washington this year to the detriment of the minority party in several ways.
The GOP earlier this year, using a simple-majority vote procedure in the Senate, clawed back funding that was already established in law. Democrats lost their fight to keep the funding.
Trump then went further, bypassing Congress altogether to rescind more funds established in law — funds that again represented Democrats’ priorities.
Also, a simple-majority Senate vote rule was used by Republicans this year to enact a sweeping tax and budget bill.
"We're in an unfortunate period of hyper-partisanship," U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, said on the floor Thursday.
Schumer: House ‘On Vacation’
Schumer, speaking just before Barrasso on the floor Thursday, hammered on the Republicans’ refusal to give concessions.
“Every day that Republicans refuse to negotiate to end this shutdown, the worse it gets for Americans, and the clearer it becomes who’s fighting for them,” Schumer said.
He also noted House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, canceled this week’s slate of business in that chamber.
Johnson’s move was supposed to put pressure on Senate Democrats to cave on the shutdown standoff. That’s because anything agreed to in the Senate — other than the House-passed CR, unchanged — would have to go back to the House for approval.
Keeping the House out all this week was supposed to signal that the House-passed measure was a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.
“In the middle of a shutdown crisis, Speaker Johnson has shut the lights off in the halls of Congress,” Schumer said. “We Democrats have made clear that Republicans need to engage with us in serious negotiation … but Speaker Johnson has sent the House on vacation.
“House Republicans are getting paid and not working. And they’re asking federal workers to work and not get paid.”
Added Schumer: “The cracks are showing on the Republican side because they know Speaker Johnson’s position of not budging on health care fixes is untenable.”
Sean Barry can be reached at sean@cowboystatedaily.com.
