Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday accused Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) of going “back on his word” by abandoning the funding levels he agreed to when he and President Biden struck a deal to raise the debt limit.
“Remember, bipartisan majorities agreed to funding levels back in June. The leaders of the House, the Senate, the White House, we all shook hands on this deal, but now the Speaker, and only the Speaker, is going back on his word,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
As a result, Schumer argued, “Speaker McCarthy has made a shutdown far more likely.”
“Despite the fact that here in the Senate we’re pursuing bipartisanship, the Speaker has chosen to elevate the whims and desires of a handful of hard-right extremists and has nothing to show for it,” Schumer said.
Here’s a reminder of all the stuff Democrats gave up back in June and got absolutely nothing in return:
Sounds like those need to be back on the table again, then. You torpedo a deal, you don’t get to pick up where you left off. Start over, and now you have to fight for every concession you already had. If dems would find their spine, this would be a lot more worthwhile.
The problem is this:
At the end of the day, Democrats actually care about people. When the government is shut down, and people are unable to get their paychecks or have access to essential services, Democrats feel empathy towards them, and also want to live up to the oaths they took to serve those people.
Meanwhile, the Republicans could not give less of a shit about those people or about their oaths.
Republicans have shown us that they will quite LITERALLY destroy our democracy in order to strengthen their grip on power. If the Democrats weren’t the grown-ups in this situation, it actually wouldn’t end.