Democrats who have put health care at the center of their government funding demands have another motivation for not backing down ahead of a likely shutdown: ending President Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine Congress’ funding power.
The fight to wrest control of the federal pursestrings has been ongoing for eight months, with lawmakers of both parties growing increasingly resentful of the White House’s snowballing efforts to scrap congressionally approved spending. Now the Supreme Court’s brief but potent ruling last Friday giving Trump the thumbs up to withhold $4 billion is serving as lighter fluid for Democrats’ escalating rage.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a senior appropriator, called the Supreme Court decision “an absurdity” and “a pile of garbage,” adding that the justices were in effect dabbling at “policymaking — not constitutional law.”
The battle to rein in Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought through a piece of must-pass legislation has been eclipsed by Democrats’ larger push to extend expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits that are due to expire at the end of the year.
But Democrats are seething about the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” opinion, arguing that Trump and the high court are ignoring the intent of the 1974 law designed to prevent presidents from withholding federal cash. And they see themselves as the last line of defense.
“He is unchecked at this point,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), another senior appropriator, said of Trump in an interview. “We have to check him. No one should have that kind of power.”
Earlier this month, Democrats put forward an alternative to the GOP-led stopgap funding patch. Their proposed bill, which Republicans have rejected, would extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies and roll back some of the Medicaid cuts Republicans enacted as part of their megabill over the summer. It also would thwart Trump’s ability to withhold and cancel federal funding.
One provision would altogether end the fast-track process of clawing back funding on a simple-majority vote in the Senate, as Republicans did this summer in clearing Trump’s request to rescind $9 billion from foreign aid programs and public broadcasting. Democrats also included language to hamper Trump’s effort to cancel a separate $4.9 billion through a “pocket rescission,” by extending the expiration date of that cash.
“Nobody has any incentive to reach a deal if it’s not going to be honored,” Merkley said, expressing Democrats’ fear of agreeing to a funding bill the White House later flouts. “That’s what it comes down to.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he made a similar point during a meeting Monday with Trump, calling the president’s funding moves “the other issue that was sharply drawn” during the Oval Office discussion with other top congressional leaders.
Schumer said he and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries “made the point clear” that it would be futile to negotiate a bipartisan agreement if the president can then “undo it all without any input.”
Democrats are also exasperated that the vast majority of their Republican colleagues aren’t willing to buck Trump to protect their own power to dictate how federal money is spent.
“It’s in the interest of Congress to not allow the executive to rescind funding that Congress has already approved,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said in an interview. “I would hope that everybody’s going to come to that conclusion.”
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is among the few Republicans publicly subscribing to that view. In rolling out her own framework this month for averting a government shutdown, Murkowski also suggested language to hamper what she called Trump’s “illegal pocket rescission.”
But other powerful Republican appropriators argue that Trump would never sign a bill that impedes his moves to freeze, shift and cancel federal funding.
“I don’t know very many presidents that tie their own hands in the use of executive authority,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters this week.
Cole also contends that the battle over Congress’ funding powers “will be solved in the courts” and that “the power of the purse could pretty clearly rest with Congress as long as we do our job.”
In its Friday ruling, however, the Supreme Court largely punted on the fundamental separation-of-powers questions at stake in the funding fight. Instead, it ruled on technical grounds that Trump’s recent pocket rescission could go forward.
In the final hours before the shutdown deadline, many Republicans are characterizing Democratic outrage about Trump’s funding moves as another item on a laundry list of unreasonable demands.
“Think about what Schumer’s doing here,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said in a brief interview. “How much sense does it make for him to start complaining about pocket rescissions when he won’t even let us bring the appropriations bills to the floor?”
If Schumer and other Senate Democrats would only vote to pass the GOP-led funding patch, Hoeven said, the chamber could move on to clearing bipartisan measures to fund the government at updated totals for the fiscal year that begins Wednesday.
Ultimately, Democrats contend that their demands in the shutdown battle are closely interconnected. Beyond the extension of expiring health care subsidies, minority party leaders are fighting against the Trump administration’s cuts to health efforts like medical research and assistance for state and local health programs.
“They further have worked at decimating public health by stealing the funds that have been appropriated by Democrats and Republicans,” said House Appropriations ranking member Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). “We need to have assurances that once we come to a deal, they’re not going to step in and say, ‘Sorry, no deal.’”
Mia McCarthy, Cassandra Dumay and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
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