What the Shutdown Is Really About
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, I'm Juliette from New York Times Games, and I'm here talking to fans about our games. You play New York Times Games? Yes, every day. There's this little tab down here called Friends, so you can add your friend. That feels new to me. It is. It's nice to have the social aspect. Oh, my God, and you have all the times. That's crazy. Right? You can look at Spelling Bee, Wordle, Connections. Oh, my God, amazing. Love that. I'll have to get the app.
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So we are officially in a government shutdown. Democrats and Republicans have not been able to come to agreement or nowhere near, as I say this, coming to an agreement about how to fund the government. The nature of this shutdown, people had lots of ideas over what, if it happened, it should be about. Should Democrats demand concessions on tariffs? Should it be about authoritarianism? Should it be about What it is about in the reality we're living in is healthcare. The Affordable Care Act for the last few years has been supported by tax credits that have made the premiums much lower and have expanded coverage under it enormously. Those credits expire at the end of this year. If nothing is done to keep them from expiring, there will be a huge what's called premium shock, and millions of people will lose health insurance.
And so I wanted to have an episode diving into the actual policy debates and stakes of this shutdown, the spending fights that led to it, the unusual ways in which Republicans have been breaking Democratic trust that helped set the stage for it, The Affordable Care Act and Medicaid debates that are now at the center of it. And then the way the Trump administration is trying to bring very particular forms of pressure to bear on the Democrats, trying to break them, make them capitulate. But they're doing so in ways that might actually be uniting them. The person I want to talk about all this with is Neera Tanden. Tanden is the president of the Center for American Progress, one of the largest progressive think tanks.
She worked in the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations. Under Obama, she was central in helping to craft and pass the Affordable Care Act. Under Joe Biden, she was a director of the Domestic Policy Council. So she knows all the policy here inside and out. As always, my email is reclineshow at nytimes.com.
Neera Tanden, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
So if you're out there following coverage of the shutdown, you're hearing a lot about something called a CR. What is a CR?
CR stands for a continuing resolution, and it basically is legislation that says that the funding levels of the government will just continue as they are for a specified period of time. Now, You know, what's different about this CR is that the president has used unilateral powers to kind of end run whatever the agreements are in Congress. But generally speaking, a continuing resolution is an agreement to fund the government.
Let's go into that little disclaimer you mentioned there, the end runs around it. This is a debate about another term people might be hearing called rescissions. What are rescissions?
Rescissions are legislation that pulls back funding that has been agreed to. So, you know, it's interesting about the rescissions packages as they are not subject to filibuster. So it just takes a simple majority. So if it takes 60 votes to come to an agreement and then it takes a simple majority to claw back funding, that means that whatever you agree to in a bipartisan process manner can be undone in a partisan vote.
So there are often in congressional fights the things that people following in the news know everybody's fighting about, and then sometimes some more internal procedural things that have completely pissed everybody off. And this rescission's bit is actually, from my talking to people in Congress, pretty significant. Because what's happening is that you have Democrats and Republicans coming together, making these funding deals.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:49
2
What is a government shutdown and why is it happening now?
4:49–15:49
3
How do continuing resolutions (CRs) work and why are they different this time?
15:49–19:33
4
What are rescissions and how are they being used to undo bipartisan funding deals?
19:33–26:22
5
What are impoundments and how is the President refusing to spend allocated funds?
26:22–43:10
6
How will the expiration of ACA tax credits affect health‑insurance premiums and coverage?
43:10–53:15
7
Why are Medicaid expansions and marketplace subsidies especially important in red‑state voters?
53:15–1:00:45