Jim Antle, the Washington Examiner magazine’s executive editor, brings the magazine’s pages to life in the show Inside Scoop. Each episode features exclusive insight from the article authors and expert analysis.
Antle starts the show by talking about how Democrats learned to stop worrying and love the shutdown fight against Trump. The party does not control the White House, House, or Senate, but Democrats do retain the power to filibuster legislation in the upper chamber, perhaps to get some pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies extended again. Well, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) said the quiet part out loud.
“Shutdowns are terrible,” she told a reporter. “Of course, there will be families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leverage times we have.”
Antle explains that since the Clinton administration, a core democratic argument has been that it was illegitimate to shut down the federal government, even partially, to implement some unrelated policy preference into law.
“It’s not supposed to be ‘leverage time,’” Antle says. “It’s supposed to be funding the government time.”
But when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) went against the shutdown strategy in March, he faced immense backlash from the party’s progressive base.
“This time, Democratic leadership is fully on board with trying this,” Antle said. “They’re hoping voters will blame President [Donald] Trump and Republican congressional leaders instead simply on the basis of the fact that they control everything.”
For the in-depth report, Tiana Lowe Doescher explains why not one more taxpayer dime should go to bailing out the Affordable Care Act. Doescher highlights the lack of public sympathy for the shutdown, citing the case of Bill and Shelly, who risk losing $15,000 of enhanced ACA subsidies despite making more than $136,000 a year.
“If Bill and Shelley serve as any warning to congressional Republicans, let it be that they cannot budge a single inch on extending the enhanced ACA subsidies,” Doescher said. “It would also be a financial crime of generational warfare against young workers already bled dry by the entitlement state that will never repay them.”
The 50-year-old early retirees claimed that if they lost these benefits, they would have to make “tough” lifestyle choices such as pulling money from retirement savings and traveling less. Democrats may be shocked that the rest of the country is not as sympathetic to Bill and Shelly’s need to prioritize fiscal responsibility.
“Continuing to bankroll Bill and Shelley’s 30-year retirement doesn’t just drive young Americans further into debt,” Doescher said. “It makes the American dream for their children and grandchildren even more impossible. Democrats may pity Bill and Shelly, but Republicans ought not reallocate one more dime to well-off boomers.”
Capitol Hill reporter Juliegrace Brufke sat with Antle to discuss the messy Republican Texas Senate primary. The entry of Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), in addition to former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and incumbent Sen. John Coryn (R-TX), could lead to a costly runoff. The race is complicated by concerns about Paxton’s baggage, including an impeachment and a divorce with affair allegations. Others argue that Coryn is not as loyal to Trump as the other options.
“He hit the campaign trail pretty hard with Trump,” Brufke said of Hunt, “which some of his colleagues kind of dismissed, brushing off, saying that Trump really didn’t need him by his side as often as he was there. All three of them are kind of vying for that endorsement right now.”
INSIDE SCOOP: BALANCED BUDGET, DELIVERING PEACE, BLUE CITIES GONE BAD
Brufke said an endorsement from Trump could be pivotal in the race.
Tune in each week at washingtonexaminer.com and across all our social media platforms to go behind the headlines in the Washington Examiner’s new show, Inside Scoop.
