General Discussion

It astonishes me that the folks attacking the end of the shutdown think that there was any chance that the repubs would agree to permanently restore the enhanced ACA subsidies or, for that matter, restore them even for a more limited period without substantial revisions.

The repubs were using 42 million people reliant on SNAP, millions reliant on air travel, millions reliant on paychecks to feed their families, pay their rent and utility bills, etc. as leverage. Our option was to do the same thing. But that's not who we are, even if we believed that doing so was for a good cause -- getting the ACA subsidies restored -- something that simply had no chance of happening in the short run.

I've been attacked for expressing this view before and expect to be attack again. But I went to a Democratic victory/thank you event here in Virginia tonight for those of us who volunteered in one way or another on the campaigns in our state. And a surprisingly large number of these folks -- dedicated Democrats -- agreed that rather than proclaiming the end of the shutdown was a defeat for Democrat and a victory for repubs, we should be taking credit for getting 42 million people their SNAP payments and ensuring them for the rest of the fiscal year, for getting reimbursement for the states that put out funds from their own treasuries to fill the SNAP gap, for getting not only guaranteed funding for WIC, but increased funding, for getting federal employees their jobs back and back pay, and for ending the transportation nightmare that the republicans were foiling on the people.

Frankly, anyone who thought the Repubs would care enough about who they hurt to cave hasn't been paying attention to the repubs for as long as I can remember and certainly not for the past 10 months.