Eric White So where do we stand vis-a-vis shutdown, deal-making wise? There’s talks of a potential bipartisan deal. Obviously, the federal pay, the mini spending bill got shut down by Senate Democrats as well. Not trying to lose that bargaining chip. I guess I could just have summed it up by asking, where are we at?
Loren Duggan So, we head into a 27th day of the shutdown with a lot of questions still about the core question. Can you reopen the government and how? What might you do about federal workers, which was one thing they were headed into the weekend talking about. And then the big question that’s held everything up, what to do about those Affordable Care Act subsidies, the enhanced ones from COVID-19 era that Democrats are interested in extending. And that’s going to come really to the fore next week with the November 1 start of open enrollment for people who get their insurance that way. So we don’t have clarity at the start of the week, but we still have a lot of these same questions.
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Eric White Day 27, and we’re still asking the same questions. I mean, this has been a weird one that there hasn’t been really any shift in the focus. It’s still back to the core issue of just them not being able to come to a compromise on these one or two particular issues.
Loren Duggan That’s right. And in part, it’s, do you talk now, or do you talk when you reopen the government, and the two parties have been pretty resolute in their positions, the Democrats would like to have some sort of deal around those ACA subsidies and the Republicans have, at least at the leadership level, have said, well, we can negotiate once the government’s reopened. There have been talks and working groups and things like that discussing the ACA issue, maybe ways to change the way the subsidies go, limit them by income and issues like that. But still no real resolution to that core question, which has been the cause of, and probably the solution to, getting out of it, unless something else intervenes and forces them to do it sooner.
Eric White The Senate Democrats declined to pass the bill that would have paid federal workers and military pay, at least. What was their thinking behind that? Are they thinking of that as, that’s potentially losing a bargaining chip and letting the government open just enough so that Republicans are okay with it staying shut down for a while? What was the idea behind that?
Loren Duggan So the bill that went to an actual vote was one from Ron Johnson. And that would have paid the excepted workers, if you will, the people who stayed on the job during the government shutdown, not the furloughed people. So Democrats, some of them were interested in paying furloughed staff and also maybe putting some protections in place around preventing RIFs or firings of federal workers. And there was a disagreement about how to move forward with that. But Ron Johnson said he would meet with people going into the weekend and over the weekend to talk about maybe a compromise that would hit the points that they care about and get some workers paid, while also maybe addressing some of the concerns they have about some of personnel moves that have been made during the shutdown and more broadly. So we’ll see if they can come to an agreement on that over the course of the weekend and sometime this week. But there was kind of a stalemate. There were a few Democrats who voted for that Ron Johnson bill. And maybe if they come to a compromise, you’ll get more, but we’ll have to figure out how to get that bill through the House. And then on to the law books, if they can come to agreement on that.
Eric White One factor that has been different about this shutdown — there’s been several things — but one is that the White House doesn’t seem to be doing its own party any favors when it comes to an optic sense. There’s this building of the ballroom, there’s still some spenditures that are occurring that many wouldn’t have agreed with even if the government was open. How has that affected it, because usually we see a White House that is Inactive and letting Congress handle everything during a shutdown, not this White House.
Loren Duggan No, I would say the White House has been a very active place. They’ve had sports teams in, they’ve had major conferences in, they’ve been talking to people. There’s been the foreign policy moves, and the President is going to Asia and will be there most of this week meeting with world leaders, continuing there. So in a lot of ways, those mechanics of the White House have gone on just like many government functions have gone on despite the shutdown. The place that has been weirdly busy sometimes and not at others has been Capitol Hill, obviously, where the Senate has been in many weeks today. It’s not all of them. They haven’t been staying over the weekends, with the exception of last week’s marathon speech. They really haven’t been in late or overnight, particularly, as they’ve been trying to do this. And then of course, the House has mainly been out of session since September 19th. So it’s kind of an odd shutdown that way in that obviously a lot of the agency shutdown and functions are curtailed, but a lot is still going on, and in some places not going on, depending on where you look.
Eric White Yeah, and it’s been weird. Let’s get introspective here. With people like ourselves, the coverage of the shutdown has changed just because of how active the White House has been. There’s other stuff to talk about. And meanwhile, there’s a shutdown counter clock at the corner of every TV station. But other than that, it’s kind of in the back of people’s minds, but not front and center like we usually see.
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Loren Duggan I feel that’s an accurate way to put it, like it’s not all consuming, it’s not all dominating. Obviously for the people who are furloughed and aren’t going to get paychecks in the coming days and have gotten maybe partial ones so far, you feel that pretty acutely, but in terms of the catching on or being as dominant as sometimes it is, it hasn’t been. And, the factors each day, the things you talk about each day and shutdown coverage sometimes are the same from day to day, but then there’s these different bills that are coming up and maybe some other ideas in the future, like do you, if you can’t get a big bill, do you vote on TSA and FAA personnel? Do you vote on just the troops? How do you maybe pursue other ideas to address opening up parts of the government or trying to make some people whole, especially as some of the government programs run out of funding or have problems getting money out to people next month when benefits are due to flow out to people.
Eric White We’re speaking with Loren Duggan from Bloomberg Government. Yeah, are there any other dates coming up that could be the next twist of the screw where a paycheck is missed or the federal judiciary runs out of money? Do we have any concrete dates or is everyone just saying, look, time is running out in general?
Loren Duggan I mean, the November 1 sort of ACA enrollment has been what a lot of people have looked to all along. That’s where you really have to sink in what your premiums will be without the extended tax credits and help there. So that’s a big one. The next payday is obviously a big one and people will be feeling that. And then, like I said, some of those benefit dates coming up, whether, is there going to be enough money for SNAP payments for people who rely on that and what are people going to say there? So I think that November cluster is pretty big, November 1 time period. And then beyond that, we’re getting to the November 21 date that they had been eyeing to fund the government through. And then that’s why there’s also discussions about, do you even need a longer continuing resolution at this point, because November 21 is getting closer and closer and on the other side of that’s Thanksgiving and the season that that brings. So there’s a tight window here and a lot of potential flash points, and we’ll be gauging whether those will move the needle.
Eric White Yeah, let’s talk about congressional business as if there wasn’t a shutdown going on. We’re still trying to confirm some nominees to the Trump administration. There are a couple that occurred this week. What’s on the docket on that front?
Loren Duggan Yes, so the judicial nominees have been moving through. Those weren’t covered by that new procedure that they came up with to do. I think it was 48 and then 100 and plus in two pretty big packages. Now they’re going one by one through some judicial nominees and processing more through committee. The big hearing this week, I think one of them will be Casey Means, who’s been nominated to be surgeon general. Her experience is more of a background. Could be an interesting discussion during that hearing and our reporters will be watching that closely. They’re also churning through military nominees. I think the head of strategic command is going through Senate Armed Services and having a hearing this week. So that process has continued to turn even as a lot of other business has been set aside.
Eric White Yeah, and the other business that people have been still staking into is the National Defense Authorization Act. Usually there’s some good bipartisan talks that occur concerning that bill. Is work beginning on that or are they all just going to wait until things get back to normal?
Loren Duggan No, they’re churning on that too. So what we’re expecting this week is for the big four, as I know, and the chairman and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee intend to sit down and start hammering out a path to getting a bipartisan bicameral compromise on that by the end of the year. The House and Senate have both passed versions with the Senate. That’s one of the things the Senate has been doing during the shutdown window is also passing their version of NDAA, so we’ll see if they can work out the differences between those and get it done. December 31 is a rough target for that bill, just because they want to wrap it up and get those important policy provisions done. That’s a separate question from funding the Defense Department, which is through the appropriations process, but that policy bill is hugely important for people.
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