The government shutdown, now in its 37th day, showed little sign of ending Friday after Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana harshly dismissed a proposal from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to pass a funding bill.
During an appearance on Fox News’ The Story with Martha MacCallum, a visibly frustrated Kennedy joked that he had to pray for patience when discussing Schumer’s latest demands.
“God, please give me patience, because if, if you give me strength, I’m going to need bail money,” Kennedy quipped.
Earlier on Friday, Leader Schumer took to the Senate floor, offering to end the shutdown if Republicans agreed to extend enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), originally passed during the COVID-19 pandemic, for one year.
Kennedy, however, deemed the offer “the dumbest thing possible that won’t work.” He slammed the proposal, arguing it would not solve the core issue or guarantee lower insurance premiums.
“What does that mean? That means that we would have to take $35 billion of taxpayer money and give it directly to the health insurance companies without any commitment of lowering premiums,” Kennedy stated. “How is that going to reduce health care costs? How’s that going to reduce premiums?”
The Senator concluded his assessment with a sarcastic plea to his counterpart. “I don’t know what Sen. Schumer is thinking. Earth to Chuck, I mean, Earth to Chuck. Am I going to vote for this? The short answer is no. The long answer is hell, no.”
Schumer, defending his proposal during his floor speech, said, “Democrats are ready to clear the way to quickly pass a government funding bill that includes health care affordability… Leader Thune just needs to add a clean one-year extension of the ACA tax credits to the CR so that we can immediately address rising health care costs.”
Schumer’s proposal was met with immediate and broad rejection from Senate Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).
“They’re feeling the heat, and they know that their last proposal was unserious and unrealistic, so I guess you can characterize that as progress, but I just don’t think that it gets anywhere close to what we need to do here, and they know it,” Thune told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Kennedy expressed pessimism about a near-term solution, noting the repeated failure of votes to lift the shutdown. “I think we’re just going to have to get used to the fact that we’ve been in a shutdown, we’re going to be in a shutdown for a while. I voted 14 times to lift the shutdown. The Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul have voted 14 times to keep the government shutdown.”
Despite the stalemate, Schumer claimed earlier in the month that the longer the shutdown goes on, the better it is for Democrats.
READ: ‘Headless Chickens’: Louisiana Sen. Kennedy Predicts Shutdown Could Drag On For Weeks
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