The Name of the Game

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

Moderate Senate Democrats are catching hell for caving on the government shutdown. But they didn’t just go quietly into the long good night. There is some interesting strategy at work, here.

It’s important to remember that nothing to date is a done deal. The agreement has to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the president. And there are some things in it that not everyone’s going like.

Also, the Republicans don’t come away clean. The Democrat’s legislative wins include restoring the jobs of thousands of federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown and bar further reductions through Jan. 30.

They guarantee back pay for hundreds of thousands of others who were furloughed, as required by a law T**** endeavored to break. Among other things, this would put the air traffic controllers back on the job just a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Americans will like that, and will know who to thank.

The agreement protected the government Accountability Office, (GAO), an agency that helps Congress keep track of federal spending, by maintaining funding at its current level. It also removed language that would bar the agency from suing the White House to release illegally withheld funds.

More importantly, it will eliminate the dog-and-pony issue of who is responsible for the shutdown dragging on while keeping the hot-topic issues of healthcare and food insecurity open and directly in front of the American public for at least another month. Millions are already going hungry and millions more are looking at a devastating jump of the cost of medical care.

By re-opening the government, the Senate agreement forces the Republicans to address these issues which are now squarely in their court. Without extending the ACA subsidies, which the Republicans have previously rejected out of hand, premiums will rise. And T**** is still in court trying not to have to feed hungry children. The Democrats are clearly on the people’s side, here. And the Republicans know it.

And finally, it means that Speaker Johnson will have to re-convene the House in order to pass the compromise budget bill. That puts the issue of the Epstein files on the table because he will will have run out of excuses for not swearing in Arizona’s newest member. He could even face a revolt among members of his caucus over the release of the files.

So the Senate Democrats are not just guilty of giving in. As they give, so do they get. And their agreement means they can hold the Republican’s feet over the flames for another month over the issues that matter most to long-suffering Americans. And they could even get their subpoena for the Epstein files, which could be the penultimate disaster for the Republican Party.

So what have the Senate’s moderate Democrats done? They’ve done what politicians are supposed to do. They’ve done what they get paid to do. They have “played politics.”

And it’s not a losing hand.