As of yesterday, Senate Democrats have taken the government hostage, threatening to keep it shut down unless their $1.5 trillion list of demands is passed. Most egregious of the demands in the dirty Dem CR are restoring taxpayer-funded free healthcare for illegal immigrants, restricting the President’s ability to pass rescissions packages, and making permanent the Biden COVID credits.
House Republicans have already done their job. They voted for a clean CR at funding levels Democrats have already approved several times over the last two years.
This unserious laundry list of progressive demands proves that Democrats are responsible for this government shutdown. This is not a negotiation over policy, it is an act of political cowardice. Simply put, Chuck Schumer is afraid of losing his job. Now, the country must suffer so he can prove that he is “hardcore” enough for his base.
By repealing the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act’s Medicaid and Medicare provisions, Democrats’ plan would restore taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens.
The OBBBA banned illegal immigrants from Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP. The law also penalizes states for providing Medicaid to illegal immigrants. If found noncompliant, a state would see a 10% reduction in its federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP), from 90% to 80%.
The CBO’s report on coverage changes estimates 7.6 million people would go uninsured under the bill’s Medicaid changes. Of the 7.6 million, 1.4 million of these recipients are illegal immigrants who would be kicked out of the program and 1.2 million are those who are simply ineligible for the program (as current law stands). The remaining “loss” in coverage is for those who either refuse to comply with the law’s work requirements or found a job that provides insurance.
The Economic Policy Innovation Center details the money laundering scheme that enables states, like California, to use federal tax dollars to provide coverage for illegal immigrants. Just this year, California will spend $8.4 billion in Medicaid benefits for illegals. This money is primarily sourced through provider tax abuse and subsequent federal dollar matches. This loophole was closed by the OBBBA. Democrats want to undo this progress.
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.
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 extend them or make them permanent.
Democrats’ incoherent counter plan to the clean CR should be rejected.
