WASHINGTON—The presidents of three of the nation’s largest unions—Becky Pringle of the National Education Association, Randi Weingarten of the Teachers/AFT, and April Verrett of the Service Employees—all blasted the legislation that ended the longest government shutdown in history, though none of them blamed the Democratic senators who defected to allow its passage. All three predicted voters will remember next November, and unions will remind them of who, the GOP, inflicted the pain on the nation.
Meanwhile, the progressive Democrats who opposed the measure, especially the members of the House, said a vigorous fight against the Republicans must continue to save healthcare for the millions who, under the Republican law, will lose it. Many are saying their party needs new leadership to wage a more serious and stronger campaign against the Trump agenda than Democrats have waged thus far.
Not all the federal services will immediately start up again, unions warned, since 670,000 workers were furloughed and another 730,000 worked without pay for more than a month. All will get back pay, but even that may not be immediate, their unions said.
Some very “essential” workers, notably air traffic controllers, burned out now, will be slow to return, if they come back at all. Four controllers, who have one of the toughest jobs in the country, voluntarily retired daily in the days before the shutdown, Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. Now 15-20 retire daily—from an already understaffed, overworked labor force.
Democratic infighting continued because Trump and his ruling Republicans got what they wanted: A money bill to keep the government going through January 30, without yielding to Senate Democratic demands to restore billions of dollars in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act health care cuts.
Some agencies—the Departments of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs, and Congress itself–will be fully funded through September 30, the end of the fiscal year.
Those health care slashes will drive 14 million people off Medicaid in the next decade, 22 million people off the ACA exchanges, and raise health insurance premiums for everyone else, to pay for uncompensated care for people who are in hospitals who can’t afford insurance.
Only one senator, longtime Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, laid the blame not just at the feet of wavering Democrats, but at the GOP, the oligarchs who back them, and the messed-up capitalist system—whose billionaires will reap the rewards of the cuts.
After the Senate broke a Democratic filibuster against the legislation on November 9 and passed it late at night on November 10, the GOP-run House, in its first session since September 19, approved it 222-209. Two Republicans bucked their party and voted “no,” while six Democrats, including one who is retiring, Maine’s Jared Golden, voted “yes.”
Another is Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, whose district runs along the Mexican border. During Trump’s first term, he was labeled as the president’s favorite Democrat and barely survived one strong progressive primary challenge. The GOP-run Texas legislature just redrew his district and others to make them even more Republican.
Democratic ire was directed at the seven Democratic senators who defected, plus Maine Independent Angus King—and, again, at Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a leader, foes said, who didn’t lead.
Joseph Gevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, reported its poll of 3,500 members showed 90% wanted Schumer ousted from his leadership, 89% said populist, worker-focused campaigns win elections and only 6% said Democratic leaders “understand working-class struggles.”
“Imagine that the president of the United States goes to the Supreme Court to deprive kids of food,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, which is supposed to write money bills. “In addition [to] depriving their parents of health care. Staggering.”
“This is the reality that we’re in right now, and we need to act like it,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a top member of the progressive “Squad.” “And we cannot enable this kind of cruelty with our cowardice. Period.” More unions and progressives weighed in, too.
“This weak deal is no cause for celebration,” Service Employees President April Verrett tweeted. “Millions of working families of all backgrounds will see their health care expenses skyrocket as ACA tax credits expire. We won’t back down until Congress takes action to resolve our health care crisis and to ensure every federal worker receives back pay. Working people don’t fold. We fight forward.”
The end of the ACA health care tax credits “deeply disappointed” Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten. Her union cited figures showing the ACA tax credit cutoff would kill 8,811 people next year, leave another 4.8 million without health insurance, and cost 340,000 health care jobs. AFT includes thousands of health care workers, especially in New Jersey and Texas.
“Our 1.8 million members have been fighting to prevent a full-blown healthcare crisis, and we repeatedly called on Congress and the president to fund the government, pay workers and lower costs for all Americans. That includes the healthcare premiums that are set to skyrocket.”
Trump and his government “used the shutdown to inflict even more pain on Americans. Rather than working with Democrats to lower healthcare costs, they fired thousands of federal employees, snarled air transportation, and denied food aid” by cutting off food stamps. That risked “up to 42 million Americans going hungry.”
“They will continue to own this problem as healthcare premiums go through the roof on January 1. And AFT members will do everything possible to remind voters next year of who is on the side of working families,” said Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher.
Becky Pringle, the Philadelphia science teacher who heads the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union, expanded on that theme.
“For weeks, millions of children, workers, and families went without the support they depend on, forced to make impossible choices just to get by,” she said. “No one should have to choose between feeding their children and accessing affordable healthcare. Yet extreme Republicans seem determined to deny both.
“Let’s be clear: This crisis was created by choice. Donald Trump and Republican leaders knew exactly who would suffer–and put politics over people. They must step up, take responsibility, and stop using families as pawns to push partisan priorities that threaten our democracy.
“Federal workers and contractors deserve back pay,” Pringle added. The contractors—everyone from private security guards at federal museums to McDonald’s workers at military commissaries, weren’t paid, either, and won’t get back pay. They didn’t during the last shutdown, also under Trump.
“All families–regardless of race, background, or ZIP code–deserve reliable access to affordable healthcare. Too many families are struggling to feed their families, so they deserve and need critical food assistance to survive,” Pringle continued.
Families and voters also sent a message to lawmakers in protests and in the November 4 election, Pringle reminded readers: “Focus on the American people’s needs. Educators and parents will not forget who chose power over people.”
But Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible.com, predicted the GOP will learn it can get away with anything. “Caving now will teach Trump and Republicans they can win any fight simply by threatening to cause terrible harm to regular people,” she said. The result will be “adverse consequences.” Maurice Mitchell, head of the Working Families Party, agreed.
That left the last word for Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., who joined 39 Democrats in refusing to kowtow to Trump. “The idea that you have a president of the United States, the leader of this country, who is willing to see children get sick and go hungry is despicable,” he said.
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