US govt shutdown a tale of healthcare and rescissions that undermine Congress' power of the purse

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00:00Well, we're going to bring in now Todd Belt. You're the director of the Political Management

00:03Program at George Washington University. Thank you so much and good morning to you.

00:08Let's talk a bit more about the main causes behind this failure of Congress to

00:12pass this funding and trigger today's shutdown. Why did it actually come to this now?

00:18Good morning. It's great to be with you again. Thanks for having me on.

00:22Yeah, this shutdown happened for two reasons. And the first is back in March,

00:27there was a continuing resolution. And some of you and your viewers might remember we had Chuck

00:32Schumer take a hard line on it only to reverse himself after the House had voted on it because

00:38he thought that the pain would be too great for the American people and that it would give too much

00:42power if there was a shutdown to Donald Trump. So there's politics in this because Schumer wants

00:49to retain his position atop the Democratic Party. And he faced a lot of blowback from his own party

00:55on that. And the second thing is we had the health care issues coming up. The Obamacare subsidies are

01:03scheduled to sunset at the end of this year, which means a lot of families could be facing several

01:09hundred dollars in increases in their premiums for their health care on a monthly basis, as well

01:14as the Medicaid cuts that were part of that big, beautiful bill that Donald Trump signed into law on

01:20July 4th. And the Democrats want to reverse some of that. And finally, there's one other thing that

01:25the Democrats want, and that is they would like to have a law passed that would limit what Donald

01:32Trump can do with rescissions. And those are stopping the spending of money that has been

01:38authorized by Congress, which he has been doing a lot lately, and which the Supreme Court just last

01:43week gave him some of the ability to do as well. Now, these types of shutdowns are really a

01:49particularly American phenomenon with American consequences. First, just talk us through what

01:55happens to the federal government when the funding lapses, as it's doing now.

02:01Yeah, sure. For the shutdown when it happens, which was 11.59 p.m. last night, there's going to be

02:09a half of a day when most employees can go in. They would be unpaid, but they have to go in and shut

02:14down their computers and shut down all of their work. There are essential employees that will be

02:21required to continue to work. Of course, the military, the transportation security agency, those people

02:27who check you before you get on your plane, those sort of emergency types of people will be required to

02:33continue to come in, but they won't be paid. And there's also the issue of the shutdowns of

02:40government buildings and agencies. Nobody will be there to pick up the phone. Nobody will be there

02:45to process any new claims for government services. And of course, the national parks. And this is the

02:51biggest public-facing part of it. We're in October, so it's not a huge part of people's vacation plans,

02:58although we do have the changing of the leaves out here on the East Coast, and people like to go to the

03:02parks for that. But this time around, the Trump administration has said that they're going to try

03:07to keep them open with some skeleton crews so people can still visit them. But usually, a shutdown of

03:12the parks is something you have with the shutdown. So I imagine this is going to be followed quite a

03:19bit in the United States. Which way do you think the public is going to fall on this? Are they going

03:23to blame the Republicans? Are they going to blame the Democrats? Or are they not even really following

03:27this story much at all over there? Well, this is really interesting. There was a poll done earlier

03:32this week that said 45% would blame Democrats. I'm sorry, 45% would blame Republicans. 32% would

03:40blame Democrats. But that was early on. And as we know about these government shutdowns,

03:46if we look at the polling over time, people really start paying attention once it happens. And right now,

03:52it's the Democrats who are forcing the shutdown. And it's usually the side that's forcing the shutdown

03:57that gets the blame. And so we can see public opinion swing very quickly against the Democrats.

04:02And that's what the Republicans are trying to do. Trump has already issued or ordered all the

04:08departments to blame the shutdown on the Democrats. There were memos that went out to all the federal

04:14employees from the department heads on that. And he's got a countdown clock on the website for the

04:20White House. And he's also been saying that the Democrats won't just do a clean resolution. So this is

04:26all on them. And so I think that that blame could shift onto the Democrats very quickly,

04:31the longer that this goes on. Well, just a quick word on the length. The last shutdown seven years

04:37ago in Trump's first term lasted over a month. That was a record. How do you see this one playing out?

04:43I think it'll be at least a few weeks. I know a lot of times there are some deadlines in

04:49legislative terms that people like to get to. Of course, the one is this is the start of the fiscal

04:54year. And there's going to be another one, of course, the Thanksgiving holiday and the Christmas

05:01holiday. That's when we see a lot of work get done because members don't like to go back to their

05:07district during those holidays and talk to a lot of angry constituents with a shutdown government.

05:13So I think that, you know, we could go as long as Thanksgiving. I doubt it. I think that we'll get

05:18back to the table as soon as the pain really starts to hit some of these legislators and they get a lot

05:25of angry constituents forcing them back to the table. But they're far apart right now. Obviously,

05:30Donald Trump doesn't want to give up his power to rescind things. He doesn't want to give up what was

05:36in the big, beautiful bill, which was those Medicaid cuts. And there's also even if they do put some

05:42more money back into Medicaid, that would help Republicans going into the midterm elections next

05:48year. So Democrats have to be careful what they're doing. Todd, thanks for that. Todd Belt,

05:52they're speaking to me from George Washington University. Thank you.

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