Congress didn’t get much done last week. Of course, that is not unusual. The Democrats are back from their shindig in California. Nothing new to report there. Several days living high on the hog while the rest of the country deals with the shutdown.
But it was not dull on Capitol Hill. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was recently quoted that the shutdown would last until “planes start falling out of the sky.” We may be close to that now. LAX experienced a full on ground stop on Sunday morning. Incoming flights were diverted and outgoing flights experienced significant delays.
Significant flight delays were experienced at Newark Airport and also at Dallas-Fort Worth. The FAA issued a ground delay on Monday at DFW until 10 PM due to staffing issues.
SNAP is running out of money but Democratic lawmakers appear to be ready to allow kids to go hungry so that they can get money for healthcare for illegal aliens. There is insufficient money to fully fund November for SNAP benefits.
One aspect of the Schumer shutdown that probably wasn’t anticipated by the Democrats, is that it has revealed to the public just how many people receive food stamps.
Years ago, when the program was still called ‘food stamps’ it was seen as something that struggling families might use temporarily to get through a hard time. Then it was re-branded as the ‘SNAP’ program. During the Obama administration the rolls were expanded by almost 50%. People were encouraged to enroll. Now there are many more people using the program, many who probably don’t even really need it.
The longer the shutdown goes on, the more reports there are about this and it’s stunning to taxpayers who did not realize until now how incredibly huge this is.
From Overton News:
“There are 42 million people in this country that need food stamps on a weekly basis.”
“And we’re saying ‘people’ deliberately instead of Americans because most of the people that are on food stamps aren’t even from this country.”
“45% of Afghanistan immigrants are on food stamps.”
“42% of Somali immigrants, 34% of every immigrant from Iraq, 23% of Haitians.”
“59% of ALL illegal aliens are collecting food stamps, meaning that most of the people getting food stamps from the U.S. Government and the U.S. Taxpayer are not even Americans.”
“Think about that.”
“And we didn’t know about any of this before the government shutdown started.”
At a press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson exposed Democrats for refusing to reopen the government. According to Johnson, the shutdown continues to appease their violent Marxist far Left base.
“They made the calculation that they would rather shut the government down and impose all this pain on the American people because they believe the Marxists, the far-Left in the base, are more active than hardworking Americans. People who go to vote.”
Is there an end to the Schumer shutdown in sight? The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union has released a statement [SEE HERE] saying both sides have proved their point, and it is now time to end the federal government shutdown and pass a short-term continuing resolution (CR).
“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley wrote in a statement first shared with NBC News. “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship.”
It is interesting to note the language used, “clean, continuing resolution.” This is what the Republican leadership has offered more than a dozen times so far.
This move will put significant pressure on the Leftists and Democrats to stop their federal government shutdown. The AFGE represents 820,000 federal and D.C. government workers.
While the pressure is increasing on the Communists Democrats, the obstacle to moving forward maybe the Obamacare subsidies.
As everyone knows, ObamaCare promised to replace the private healthcare plans that most Americans were enrolled in through their employers, with a government-subsidized system of universal healthcare similar to the socialized medicine programs in Europe and elsewhere around the globe.
It was claimed that the average family of four would save over $1500 per year in healthcare costs. How this would be achieved wasn’t specified. The architect of the bill, one Jonathan Gruber, basically said the bill was written in such a way to get the stupid American voter to support it. We were told by Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that Congress must “Pass the bill to find out what’s in the bill!”
The reality is that the average family’s medical costs went UP that amount or even more, not down. I had friends who experienced a 50% increase in premiums the first year. Certain government subsidies ameliorated that situation a bit, but they are about to “Sunset” if not extended. In particular, the COVID era subsidies should have stopped long ago. If sunsetting happens, the full extent of the ObamaCare fiasco will be revealed. Former President Barack Obama will be further exposed as a pathological liar. Even the most rabid supporters of the LightBringer will no longer be able to dispute that fact.
The Democrats cannot afford to have this happen. This undoubtedly underpins the reluctance that they have to re-opening the government. The Democrats would rather have children go hungry than expose just how much of a fraud Obama was.
What will happen? The political calculus is a bit muddy. But one thing is certain. The closer we get to the end of the year, the more exposed the Democrats become.