You Got to Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em

Source: electoral-vote.com

You Got to Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em

When you're playing poker, and you're up a good bit, you have a decision to make. You can keep going, and hope that your good fortune and/or good play continue. Or you can call it a night, which means you won't be winning any more money, but you will also preserve the gains you've already made.

Late last night, the Senate had a "breakthrough" and managed to come up with a bill that can get 60 votes for cloture. That first procedural vote was already held, and succeeded 60-40. Here are the main provisions of the agreement:

Government funding, at current levels, through January 30.

Most federal workers (including 4,000 of them who were fired) will be able to return to their jobs and will be paid. Trump cannot fire anyone prior to January 30.

Funding for military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the FDA, the Department of Agriculture through September of next year. SNAP is administered by the latter department, and so people who need the program would not be at risk of being cut off for the next 10 months.

Protections for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which keeps an eye on presidents and how they spend the government's money.

The Senate will hold a vote on ACA subsidies at some point in November or December.

Of course, the bill must work its way through the remaining Senate votes, then it must be passed by the House, then it must be signed by Donald Trump. The first of those three things is very likely to happen. The other two, you never know.

Now, let's talk about the politics of the deal. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) crossed the aisle, as he has done on all the other budget bills, to vote with the Democrats. So, we ended up with 52R + 7D + 1I for the bill and 38D + 1R + 1I against. Here is a list of the eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus who voted for the deal, and why their votes are not surprising:
Senator Explanation
Dick Durbin (R-IL) Retiring
Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) Purple state; has voted for all the funding bills
John Fetterman (D-PA) Purple state; has voted for all the funding bills
Maggie Hassan (D-NH) Purple state
Tim Kaine (D-VA) Purple state; represents many federal workers
Angus King (I-ME) Purple state; has voted for all the funding bills
Jacky Rosen (D-NV) Purple state
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) Purple state; retiring

This bears the hallmarks of a vote that was carefully managed to get it to 40 votes and not one vote more. Everyone here is either retiring (and is bulletproof) or has pretty good political reasons to steer a centrist course. Normally, with these "just enough" votes, the party leader is one of the 40. Obviously, that did not happen with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who did some very loud squawking and said he does not like this bill. Inasmuch as Schumer figures to face the reelection fight of his life in 2028, it's plausible that he just could not afford to be one of the "yea" votes on this one.

In addition to Schumer, many other Senate Democrats complained about the bill. We have no doubt that some of them, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), really are mad. Others... it's a little less clear. For example, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) voted no and said he didn't like the bill, but then turned around and declared that his colleagues who voted for the measure did not "cave," that they did "what they feel is helping the most number of people" and that "there is no good solution." It is very possible that much of the complaining yesterday is political theater for the benefit of voters, and that the Democrats decided as a group to take the deal, and then found the 8 caucus members (well, 5 members, since three were already voting "yea&quot who could most afford to vote a position that will be unpopular with many Democratic voters.

And that speaks to the risk that the Democrats are taking here. They were clearly "winning" the shutdown, in part because they remained unified and on message, and in part because Donald Trump has shot himself in the foot several times (more on that tomorrow). They could certainly have kept going, buoyed by Tuesday's election results. Now that they have "worked something out" without getting any firm concessions on healthcare, we may well see the return of "The Democrats caved again" and "The Democrats don't know how to play this game" and "DACO" (Democrats always chicken out).

However, sh** was about to get real. Many Americans were increasingly at risk of going hungry. Airline travel was turning into a mess, and with Thanksgiving right around the corner. Many federal employees were suffering due to the lack of pay. Any of those things could plausibly have changed the dynamics of the shutdown and of the polling. So, the blue team (or, at least, some members of the blue team) decided to quit while they were ahead.

As part of the negotiations, the Democrats did manage to advance some of their priorities. If you look at the list above, they really wanted to help out federal employees, and that happened. They also got money for the DoA and SNAP, and the vote on the healthcare subsidies. You might think the part about the GAO was a Democratic "win," but that part of the deal was actually put there because of demands from a few moderate Republican senators. That is very interesting—that some GOP members are asserting themselves, and (indirectly) defending their power of the purse. Anyhow, while the Democrats undoubtedly approve of that provision, it's not their doing.

And now, let's address a couple things the Democrats got that they cannot necessarily announce publicly. The vote on the subsidies is known, and it certainly seems like a loss, since a vote on the subsidies is not the same thing as restoring the subsidies. However, for those who would call it a loss, consider that maybe the blue team (the five new aisle-crossers, at least, and very possibly other Democratic members like Hickenlooper) are actually playing the long game. Well, not exactly long, but maybe the short-to-medium game. There are only three outcomes when it comes to the promised vote: (1) The subsidies are restored, or (2) The Republicans vote down the subsidies (again), either in the Senate or the House or (3) Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) refuses to hold the vote.

In the first case, the Democrats get what they want. In the second and third cases, they get crystal-clear proof that the Republicans are the ones who don't want poor people to have health insurance, which the blue team can then wield as a club in the 2026 elections. Oh, and if things don't work out to their satisfaction, the Democrats can resume their resistance on January 30, when the government will shut down again if there is no bill. In that scenario, the blue team will have even more political cover AND they won't have to worry about people who need SNAP going hungry, or veterans going without their pensions. In short, the Democrats got some pretty good stuff from a politics perspective without actually giving all that much up.

The second thing the Democrats got is pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to reopen the House. If he does it, then Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) will have to be sworn in, and then Rep. Thomas Massie's (R-KY) Epstein files bill would have the necessary signatures to be brought to the floor of the House. If Johnson doesn't re-open, then he will open the Republicans up to withering criticism that they care more about protecting sexual predators than they do about people who are dealing with hunger.

Ultimately, many Democrats, including some who voted to hold the line (like Hickenlooper) concluded that the White House was never, ever going to give in on the subsidies. Shaheen, for example, concurred that "this was the only deal on the table." If that is true, then the blue team got about as much as they could have hoped to get, and they made the correct tactical decision—to cash out. If it is not true, and there was a real possibility of Trump caving, then the Democrats should have pushed all-in. That's really the crux of the matter; readers can decide for themselves if Hickenlooper, Shaheen, et al., assessed the situation correctly when they decided this was the best deal possible. (Z)

Read more: https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Nov10-1.html