Jake Jones
Another Government Shutdown? Here's Why This Keeps Happening
For the past 20 years, Congress has relied more on temporary measures to keep the government running.
LEARN MOREPosted: 12:19 p.m. EDT Apr 22, 2017
The White House has an offer it hopes Democrats can't refuse.
It's the president's latest deal-making strategy that Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney laid out:
"We've finally boiled this negotiation down to something that we want very badly that the Democrats really don't like, and that's the border wall. At the same time, there's something they want very badly that we don't like very much, which are these cost-sharing reductions of the Obamacare payments. ... We'd offer them $1 of CSR payments for $1 of wall payments."
A cost-sharing reduction, or CSR, is a subsidy the government pays insurers to keep costs down for lower-income Americans. Under former President Barack Obama, House Republicans successfully challenged the payments in court, but an appeal has allowed those payments to continue. Trump could change that by discontinuing that appeal process.
This recent offer from Republicans would help avoid the looming government shutdown.
But some Democrats aren't buying it.
A spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the White House offer a "gambit," pointing out the president promised during the campaign that Mexico would pay for the border project.
And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's office also clapped back, reminding Republicans, including Mulvaney, that they contributed to a government shutdown in 2013.
If there's no deal, the government will partially shut down April 29: Trump's 100th day in office.
