The Democrats were furious Monday over eight senators who caved to support a deal to end the government shutdown that does not include the Affordable Care Act subsidies their party had spent weeks fighting for.
The offending lawmakers include Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Tim Kaine, Jacky Rosen, John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, and independent Senator Angus King, who claimed that they’d ensured a Senate vote on extending the tax credits. Their capitulation comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted for weeks that he wouldn’t promise them a vote on anything, and even if he does follow through with a vote, it’s unlikely such a measure will pass the House.
Democratic lawmakers slammed their colleagues for forfeiting health care coverage for an estimated 5.1 million Americans by 2034 and increasing premiums across the marketplace.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders railed against the deal while speaking before the Senate Sunday. “If this vote succeeds, over 20 million Americans are gonna see at least a doubling in their premiums in the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “For certain groups of people, it will be a tripling and a quadrupling of their premiums. There are people who will now be paying 50 percent of their limited incomes for health care. Does anybody in the world think that makes sense?”
Hey, crazy question for any lemmings here whose Senator was one of the 8 who voted to end the shutdown:
Did ANY of you email your senator and tell them you fully support the shutdown and urge them to never give in until the health care provision was fixed?
Everyone in here bitching about Senators taking money, or both parties being the same, all the typical brain dead bullshit the keyboard politicos blather, did ANY of you contact your Senators and make your voice heard?
Don’t bother replying. We all know the answer.
EDIT: Keep the downvotes coming, believers of our weakness! You’ve convinced me, we are all powerless!! Let’s just complain all day in lemmy comments how the system is rigged and we have no power, downvote me if you agree! LONG LIVE APATHY! WE ARE THE WEAK AND POWERLESS!
Yes, I did in fact call both of my senators. Neither was one of the eight, but I told them to strongly urge their colleagues not to make this deal.
Your cynical assumptions about what people did or did not do are pointless. Go do something yourself and quit making up shit to chastise others for.
Oh right, because you did, all the other lemmings did as well, right? Please, spare me your righteous indignation. You actually think ALL the people constantly complaining how the system is rigged there’s nothing that can be done, and all the BOTH SIDES SAME arguments seen in the majority of comments here, you think that these indicate lemmy is full of people who actively engage with their representatives? lol
See all the other replies to my comment to see examples of the thought processes i am referring to, of people who dont contact their reps.
Yep, because all the constituents magically knew that their elected representatives were making deals behind their backs.
Are you kidding? Are you telling me you had no idea they were holding votes constantly to reopen the government?? They held at least 14 votes my man. Each and every vote was the potential for “a deal”. Clearly you never reached out to your representatives at least once during those 14 votes.
Thanks for highlighting my point.
Oh, for sure. I most definitely did not reach out to my local representative. That would be a weird interaction considering neither I, nor my local representative, are American.
BTW, you’re very welcome for highlighting your point here. Most people do not diligently follow their local politics. ‘Wanting’ them to do so isn’t much of an incentive. Nor is gaslighting them into believing that they should already be aware (coz reasons).
Hey everyone we could have kept them from taking that fat check if we’d only followed this hero’s lead and written them a strongly-worded letter
No bit junkie you are helpless! Keep sitting in your room pounding away on your keyboard how helpless you are, how there’s nothing you can doooooo!
As opposed to pounding away on yours with false hope that it’s having an effect?
My senators are both Republicans so I’m pretty sure they’re happy for the distraction.
I’m sure the Republicans NEVER contact their Democratic representatives to complain or make their voices heard, so yeah, you shouldn’t contact your Republican representatives. Never make your voice heard, what’s the point right it’s useless we are all so powerless oh god I give up you are all right downvote me we have no power THEY WIN!!
They stopped responding or taking my calls, so I usually only contact them when they are directly involved in the outcome of a decision.
One of my senators is the pro vaccine medical doctor that was the deciding vote for RFK’s fitness hearing. I wrote to him telling him I knew he understood more than anyone else why it was important not to approve him. I guess he never got the message.
I’ve lost faith in Republicans, but I haven’t lost my faith. I haven’t given up and neither should you. If you’re cursed with life, what recourse do you have, but to live?
Then I owe you an apology. If you’re stuck in a gerrymandered district I hope the Democrats can one day push the Redistricting Reform Act forward that they’ve been attempting since 2019.
I don’t know that I would argue it’s extremely gerrymandered (anymore/yet) but it will be (again) once the supreme court decides the voting rights act is “racist” against white people.
I would prefer to just have equality, SCOTUS term limits, less unitary decision making for all politicians, and less executive power for presidents, instead of watching politicians on both sides keep distracting America with magic tricks to one up the other in a continuous circle jerk that exists to keep left vs right pitted against each other, rather than actually accomplishing anything for the people they’re supposed to represent. But thank you, I do appreciate your thoughts and prayers.