Republicans shut down government instead of negotiate

Even politically engaged constituents of our Republican US Representative Michael Baumgartner may have been puzzled by his abrupt referral to the “Working Family Tax Cuts” bill in his recent Friday Emails. Weekly since September 19, identical sections began with “As part of the Working Family Tax Cuts bill, applications are now open for states to apply for funding through the Rural Health Transformation Program, a historic $50 billion investment aimed at strengthening rural health care across America.”

If you’ve never heard about the “Working Family Tax Cuts” bill being passed, it’s because it never was. The misnomer “One Big Beautiful Bill,” passed by House Republicans — including Baumgartner — without one Democratic vote, was so unpopular with the public that congressional Republicans renamed it the greater misnomer “Working Family Tax Cuts” bill without telling anybody.

But a simple reading of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on this renamed bill reveals it is anything but a help for typical working families. The CBO report clearly states that loss or increasing cost of healthcare for most working families will more than cancel out their miniscule tax cuts while billionaires receive massive cuts. Widespread loss of Medicaid and elimination of Obamacare subsidies for low- and middle-income Americans will overwhelmingly counteract the (again misnomer) “historic $50 billion investment aimed at strengthening rural health care across America” and make working families’ healthcare highly unaffordable.

Republicans shut down government to save their scam rather than negotiate with Democrats’ demands to restore affordable healthcare.

Norm Luther