IN THE NICK OF TIME

The fury and outrage of Democratic senators condemning their own for crossing over and voting with the Republicans to reopen the government has petty much died down. (In public, at least.) What's done is done!

Now, on to the possibility of the Republicans debating the renewal of Covid-era subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. (They said they would, right?)

Not that any sort of debate will make a difference. Nothing will come of it.

And maybe it shouldn't. Folks were given a financial break during Covid and now that dangerous time is over. Sure, people are still affected by Covid, but that is likely to stay true for years to come. When did the last guy die of the Spanish Flu? Google's AI tells me it happened in April, 1920. But remember, the H1N1 virus has not actually disappeared. It has just mutated into something we have learned to live with.

At some point, all pandemics drop to the level of the yearly flu stats and tracking it loses priority. That means at some point, even for Covid-19, elevated subsidies should come to an end. Well, maybe we're there now.

(On September 22nd of this year, the Covid death rate in the US was point zero eight per million. Then it went to zero. People still get sick, but they recover.)

The lasting problem is not Covid, of course, but American healthcare in general.

As usual, the Republicans hint at a health plan to replace the ACA, but they're unable to produce it. Business as usual. Maybe the Dems can get control of both houses and take a shot at really fixing that thing.

(Right now, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer wants to force a vote so folks back home will know how their representatives acquitted themselves. It's just political shaming, really, but maybe that's all that could possibly come of it.)

During the government shutdown, certainly, nothing was going to happen. Democrats held out, even so, hoping against hope—but it was a false hope.

If things had gone on much longer, the Democrats, who were definitely scoring points against the GOP, would nevertheless have begun to lose ground. Voters of every persuasion are ultimately willing to blame both parties for whatever bad thing is going down.

Another few days, in fact, and the matter of the SNAP shutdown, affecting more than forty million citizens, would have become acute, as vast numbers of Americans started to go hungry. In most states, even if people still had money on their SNAP cards, they wouldn't have been able to use it. Local administrators had suspended the program entirely, waiting for federal funding to return.

Making matters worse, the effed-up airport situation was driving folks nuts just as the country began ramping up for the Thanksgiving travel nightmare.

These problems (and many others) would have had the population demanding answers and scapegoats, and the Democrats were not going to be able to avoid scrutiny for holding out for something that simply wasn't going to happen.

But then the Democratic Eight stepped up and ended the crisis—just in the nick of time, in my opinion.

But don't forget, the Hateful Eight didn't capitulate to the Republicans without getting something in return.

No way were they going to get the ACA subsidies restored. But they did get SNAP funded through the end of September, 2026, along with some other stuff. What this means is, when the government shuts down again at the end of January (which is how the smart money is betting), the problem of Americans going hungry won't be a factor to pressure a fast surrender.

During the next "capitulation" negotiations, maybe they can come away with funding for airport workers so TSA personnel and air traffic control folks won't have to work for nothing.

Then, in the inevitable shutdown after that, neither of those killer items will be available to gum up the works. At that time, maybe the Dems can hold out longer for a lot more valuable stuff.

Little by little, they work their subterranean tactics, all the way to the 2026 midterms, after which maybe the entire concept of government shutdowns can be addressed.

Will Donald Trump live that long? Stay tuned. Could be a photo finish.