Two issues at stake in the shutdown have profound consequences

First, Congress must protect Americans' access to health care. Then, it must protect its own power.

Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash

What’s really at stake in the government shutdown fight?

It’s not whether Democrats or Republicans will win or lose or who will get blamed for the shutdown pain, though the media will make it all about that political drama.

This contest is about two things that actually matter in our daily lives and to the future of our country.

First, will Congress let the cost of health insurance for millions of Americans go up by thousands of dollars next year?

Second, will Congress surrender to this and every future president its most important constitutional power: to decide how much the government spends and for what purpose?

Let’s look at both of those questions in turn, beginning with the healthcare debate.

At the end of this year, tax credits that make health insurance more affordable for more than 20 million Americans who buy their coverage through the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces are set to expire at the end of this year. Without that support, a family with two kids making $80,000 a year could see its annual healthcare costs rise by over $3,000. For a variety of reasons (including that many younger, healthier people would leave the insurance pool because of this sticker shock), the underlying premiums for Americans who stay in the pool are expected to more than double—starting in January—if Congress doesn’t extend the tax credits.

So, to be clear: A Republican president elected on a promise to make life more affordable for middle- and working-class Americans is about to preside over a massive increase in healthcare costs for the people he said he would help. He could have told Republicans in Congress to fix this problem by extending the subsidies in their “Big Beautiful Bill,” but he didn’t. He could have tried to negotiate a bipartisan fix before the government funding deadline, but he showed zero interest in doing so.

Heck, he could have suggested spending some of the “$8 trillion” in tariff revenue and “$17 trillion” in foreign investment he’s falsely claimed is coming into America from his brilliant policies to help Americans afford health care.

But I digress. The point is, he doesn’t care. Only Democrats are fighting to keep our health insurance costs from going through the roof. And they are using the last bit of leverage they have to prevent that from happening. Every American concerned about high costs should be rooting for them to win.

The second question that has to be resolved in this fight is even more fundamental. The Constitution is clear that in our democracy Congress has the power of the purse. Congress passes laws appropriating money for our government to spend as Congress directs. And the president is obligated to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Donald Trump and his budget director, Russell Vought, dispute this. They say that if Congress appropriates $100 to build a bridge or to take care of veterans or to buy weapons for Ukraine, the administration is free to spend only some of that money or even none at all. So let’s say Democrats help the Republicans get the 60 votes they need to pass a government funding bill in the Senate. The next day, Trump could ask Congress to approve a “rescission” to cancel whatever portion of that funding he doesn’t want to spend, which would only need 50 Senate votes to pass. The Trump regime has also claimed the right to issue made-up “pocket rescissions” to ignore Congressional appropriations without even asking for consent. The Supreme Court has signaled that it might not referee this dispute. This means Congress is on its own — it must use its powers to preserve its powers.

If I were still in Congress, I would accept that Republicans won the last election and are entitled to pass a budget that reflects their priorities. So long as that Republican budget avoided a crisis in health care costs, I would be inclined to vote for it to keep the government open. But why would any member of Congress vote for any budget if the president of the United States is openly promising to ignore it?

If Republicans in Congress were free to think and vote for themselves, they would understand the danger of giving presidents this unchecked power. A future ultra-progressive president could use it to refuse to spend a penny Congress appropriated on border enforcement or to send ICE agents home without pay or to stop building ships for the Navy. Allowing this precedent would be the equivalent of writing Congress out of the U.S. Constitution. And again, the only leverage Congress has to prevent such an unfathomable outcome is to withhold funding from the executive branch until the president promises to abide by the laws it passes.

These are simple issues, and in the coming days Democrats need to talk about them in simple terms. They should remind Americans that Republicans control all the branches of our government and are responsible for keeping it open. If they need help, Democrats are willing to provide it. All Trump and Republicans have to do is to not to let the cost of health insurance double for millions of people—something I’m confident their own swing district members of Congress desperately want them to concede—and to agree that the bipartisan budget Congress passes is the budget the president will respect.

Hold fast to those reasonable requests. Project confidence and strength under pressure. And you will win this debate.

Tom Malinowski is a former member of Congress from New Jersey who was an assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration.

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