WASHINGTON, D.C. – We are now headed into the third week of the government shut down. Republicans see the upcoming pay day, or lack thereof, for federal workers as a pressure point on the Democrats.
Over the weekend, the President announced they will be moving some money around to make sure service members get paid on Wednesday. Even with that problem set aside, many federal workers will still miss a paycheck on the 15th.
Three days ago, the administration began firing some federal workers. It’s still unclear how many in total were let go, but they had to re-hire hundreds of scientists at the CDC who were mistakenly fired.
The Democrats maintain they do not want to reopen the government unless there are extensions to Affordable Care Act subsidies, which expire later this year. Here’s what Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in part Monday morning when he was asked about their efforts to scale back or repeal the ACA:
“We know that American healthcare needs dramatic reform,” said the Speaker. “Let’s just state it simply: Obamacare failed the American people. It was promised to be a great success to make healthcare more affordable but its done exactly the opposite.”
He goes on to say Republicans tried to repeal and replace Obamacare years ago.
“So, if indeed the subsidy is going to be continued, it’s going to need real reform,” said the Speaker. “But there’s a lot of ideas on the table to do that. Probably 100 different ideas on how to fix it, but we can’t do that overnight.”
The Senate is expected to return to the Capitol on Tuesday. The Speaker has canceled votes again in the House this week as part of the pressure campaign on Senate Democrats.
