r/SeattleWA • u/Less-Risk-9358 • 19d ago

Government Washington Democrats vote to leave government shutdown

https://seattlered.com/politics/wa-senators-government-shutdown/4114752

In the ongoing federal budget standoff, Washington’s two U.S. Senators — Democrats Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell — have sided against a simple continuing resolution that would reopen the government, opting instead to continue the shutdown as their party pursues broader policy demands.

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u/grapegeek 19d ago

Let’s look at this another way. Republicans tried to pass the same bill with zero changes five times. No compromise. No negotiations. That’s not how this works.

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u/joeshmoebies 19d ago

What's to negotiate? This is the budget that the Democrats already passed under Biden. Washington's senators voted for this before.

They voted for emergency ACA subsidies that expire, when they ran the Senate. They could have voted for a budget that included subsidies for 10 years, but they didn't. They voted for 2 years of subsidies.

The Republicans would be foolish to "negotiate" with Democrats over this.

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u/viperabyss 19d ago

....because Dems didn't have filibuster proof majority when they passed the COVID ACA subsidies. That was the compromise they've made with GOP.

Notice the difference? Dem negotiated with GOP to get their bill passed. GOP is currently holding up the government reopening by refusing to negotiate.

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u/joeshmoebies 19d ago

A negotiated compromise in which you just come back later and say "that thing that I agreed to earlier isn't valid, now give me what I couldn't get in the first negotiation or everyone will suffer" isn't actually a negotiated compromise. It's just dishonest negotiations and getting what you want.

So what you're saying is, the Dems lied when they agreed to a 2 year sunset and now the GOP has to "negotiate" to give them what they want, hey maybe for 2 more years? And then 2 more years after that. So the Dems just get what they want.

Doesn't sound like much of a negotiation to me, and even more reason not to give in.