Lorie Shaull on Flickr - Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro at the People's Rally, Washington DC

In recent days, frontline Democrats have threatened a government shutdown, refusing to support Republicans’ clean continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government through November 21.

Democrats’ “counter plan” includes a permanent extension of the enhanced tax credit and limits on the President’s ability to introduce and pass rescissions packages. These policies would be disastrous.

GOP leadership has given Democrats the opportunity to avert a government shutdown with no changes in funding levels except for enhanced security for members of Congress and government officials.

One thing is evident: if Democrats do not pass this CR, they own the shutdown. A #SchumerShutdown, if you will.

Making the Biden COVID credits permanent would be tremendously expensive, increase premiums in the long-term, and encourage widespread fraud.

In the American Rescue Plan (ARP), President Biden and congressional Democrats expanded Obamacare subsidies by increasing benefits for households at every income level and expanding them to households earning more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level. These expanded subsidies were then extended through 2025 in the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Biden COVID credits were always supposed to be temporary. At the time they were passed, the American people were assured that the expanded premium tax credits were a necessary and temporary response to the global pandemic. Four years later, we have moved on from the pandemic, but taxpayers are still on the hook for rising premiums, including for those making over $500,000 per year. Notably, roughly half of new enrollees would not have been eligible under the original ACA framework, as their incomes exceed the 400 percent federal poverty level.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, expanding the subsidies would cost around $35 billion per year, or $350 billion over the next decade. As the Economic Policy Innovation Center detailed, “resulting increases in net interest costs would add another $64 billion, for a total cost of $448 billion over the FY 2026 to 2035 period.” The cost of premium tax credits was already colossal – costing taxpayers $1 trillion over 10 years. It is unacceptable for “temporary” expansion to raise that cost by roughly 45 percent.

Lax verification during the Biden expansion enabled millions to qualify improperly. The Paragon Health Institute estimated that 6.4 million Americans are improperly enrolled in Obamacare exchanges, a number that surged by more than one-quarter from 2024 to 2025. This level of improper enrollment, which is likely an underestimation, will cost taxpayers up to $27 billion this year.

As Paragon details in their report, after the PTC expansion, there was a surge in enrollment and high-than-ever insurer profits, with many of these enrollees “ineligible, unaware they were signed up, or never [having] used their plan.” This mirrors Paragon’s research regarding phantom Obamacare enrollees, finding that “a staggering 40 percent of enrollees in 94 percent actuarial value silver plans and bronze plans had no medical claims in 2024.” No doctor visits, services received, or prescriptions filled.

Even with these policies in place, a CBO report confirmed that premiums for exchange plans are rising more quickly than originally anticipated. When the government subsidizes the cost of anything, sellers inevitably raise their prices. The government will pay for it, after all. As a result, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on this expansion are going straight to insurers, not to patients. While some Americans may be concerned about premiums going up in the short term, removing the incentive for insurers to continue raising their prices will save patients money in the long run.

The massive cost of this expansion not only puts our country further in debt, but these federal dollars are going straight to insurance companies, not patients, who now have little incentive to keep their costs low. The expanded subsidies have encouraged rampant fraud and are putting taxpayers on the hook for high-income earners’ payments. Congress should let them expire, not make them permanent.

Limiting our ability to pass rescissions packages would exacerbate the national debt and ignore the mandate given to this Administration to slash wasteful spending.

The Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974 gives the President the authority to propose to Congress a cancellation in budget authority, with said proposal receiving privilege – an expedited vote that only needs a majority to pass.

Ironically, this authority was created by Democrats as a “here you go” provision in a bill that’s primary function was ensuring presidents spent every dollar Congress allocated. Now, they are looking to roll it back.

So far, President Trump and congressional Republicans have passed one rescissions bill, with plans to pass many more. The bill they passed included $9 billion in spending cuts initially by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This included a rescission of $8 billion in wasteful foreign aid spending and $1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (NPR and PBS).

These spending items included, but were certainly not limited to:

  • Iraqi Sesame Street ($3 million)
  • Teaching kids about “environmentally friendly” reproductive health ($2.5 million)
  • NPR’s defense of looting and cannibalism, genderqueer dinosaur profiles, and more
  • Electric buses in Rwanda ($500,000)
  • Nepali trans people, sex workers, and their clients ($833,000)
  • LGBTQI+ programs in Uganda and the western Balkans ($1.2 million)
  • Promoting voter ID in Haiti ($1 million)
  • Promoting vegan food in Zambia ($8,000)
  • Strengthening “queer global movements” ($5.1 million)
  • Left-wing news coverage ($500 million)

Taxpayers’ hard-earned tax dollars should not be wasted on programs like these. Not only is this kind of spending outside of the federal government’s purview, but much of it is actively harmful. We cannot allow Democrats to remove this important budget tool.

Democrats’ incoherent and poorly organized counter plan to the clean CR should be rejected.