On October 1st, the U.S. federal government was shutdown following a stalemate between the Republican and Democratic parties regarding a major spending bill. The two parties were unable to reach an agreement in terms of the health care spending bill, with neither of the parties willing to give in to the other.
The bill proposed by the Republican Party would result in cuts to health care provisions, and the Democratic Party could not agree to it. Now on Tuesday, President Donald Trump has warned that if the Democrats do not approve the funding, there are going to be dangers to the future of both Social Security, as well as Medicare. Here is what you need to know.
Democrats say Republican funding bill “means death”
The healthcare spending bill put forward by the Republican Party includes cuts to health care provisions, and this is something the Democratic Party cannot agree to. The Republicans are arguing that the health care provisions they are cutting were being used to fund medical care for illegal aliens.
At a press conference, Trump said that when he had asked for feedback on the spending bill from the Democrats, one of them had said that, “it means death.”
“There’s nothing about death,” Trump continued on. “Theirs is death because they’re going to lose Medicaid, they’re going to lose Social Security, they’re going to lose Medicare, all of those things are going to be gone because the whole country would be bankrupt, and you’re not going to have any kind of medical insurance.”
Having the president of a country warn that Social Security and Medicare could potentially be lost will naturally cause the tens of millions of vulnerable individuals in the Social Security program to worry. Many of these individuals may even be relying solely on their Social Security benefit income to get by, which means that any sort of disruption or stopping of payments could have severely detrimental effects.
”Federal funding gaps have become more frequent in the last 30 years,” the Congressional Research Service has found, “which added that the issues are often triggered by fights over budget policy and partisan spending demands.”
Trump shares warning on Social Security
At a press conference, Trump warned that if an agreement is not reached with Democrats, the fallout will directly impact extremely important programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. It is, however, worth it to note that at present, none of these three programs have faced any sort of change or delay as a result of the current ongoing shutdown which is now entering its third week.
“We will not be extorted on this crazy part of this. They’ve never done this before. Nobody has. You always vote for an extension,” the president further noting referring to the Democrats.
In a statement made to Newsweek on Tuesday, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the following: “Democrats chose to shut down the government because they want to give free health care to illegal aliens. They can choose to reopen the government at any point by supporting the bipartisan CR they voted for just six months ago. The Trump Administration is working day and night to mitigate the pain Democrats are causing.”
Democratic strategist Doug Gordon noted the following as per Newsweek: “No one ever ‘wins’ a shutdown. But it is certainly a bad look for Republicans that Speaker Johnson has the House of Representatives on a taxpayer-funded monthlong vacation while Americans are about to get hit with the largest health care cost increase in more than a decade.”
“This is a fight the GOP is comfortable having. The Democrats overplayed their hand by trying to jam through a major policy change on the back of a funding deadline,” GOP strategist Matt Kink said of the government shutdown on Tuesday to Newsweek.