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{"id":7022,"date":"2025-03-07T20:04:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T20:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/house-dems-invoke-medicaid-cuts-in-warnings-over-government-shutdown-fight\/"},"modified":"2025-03-07T20:04:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T20:04:27","slug":"house-dems-invoke-medicaid-cuts-in-warnings-over-government-shutdown-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/house-dems-invoke-medicaid-cuts-in-warnings-over-government-shutdown-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"House Dems invoke Medicaid cuts in warnings over government shutdown fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The top three House Democrats stopped short on Friday of urging united opposition in their party to the funding plan Republicans are working to finalize \u2014 with just one week left until federal cash stops flowing.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to members, Minority Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/196306\" target=\"_blank\">Hakeem Jeffries<\/a>, Minority Whip <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/191669\" target=\"_blank\" data-person-id=\"191669\">Katherine Clark<\/a> and Democratic Caucus Chair <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/226960\" target=\"_blank\" data-person-id=\"226960\">Pete Aguilar<\/a> trashed Speaker <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/242539\" data-person-id=\"242539\">Mike Johnson<\/a>\u2019s intent to pass a bill next week to keep federal agencies running on autopilot budgets through September. The missive does not call for all Democrats to vote \u201cno\u201d on that bill, after Jeffries said Thursday that \u201cRepublicans are going it alone.\u201d But the letter does defend safety-net programs like Medicaid that Republicans are targeting in their separate, yet-to-be-drafted, party-line page of tax cuts, defense spending, border security investments and energy policy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMedicaid is our redline,\u201d the letter said. The Democratic leaders did not elaborate, however, on whether they would demand future Medicaid protections as an ultimatum in the fight over government funding. <\/p>\n<p>House GOP leaders aim to release bill text of their funding bill later Friday or over the weekend, hoping to give lawmakers at least three days to review the measure before a vote ahead of the March 14 government shutdown deadline.<\/p>\n<p>Predicting that the bill will pass the House, Johnson said on Friday that there won\u2019t be any way \u201cpolitically\u201d for Senate Minority Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51231\" data-person-id=\"51231\">Chuck Schumer<\/a> to avoid blame for a government shutdown if Democratic senators don\u2019t vote to send the bill to President Donald Trump, who has personally whipped support among GOP lawmakers. Many Senate Democrats <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/03\/07\/senate-democrats-shutdown-decision-00217178\" target=\"_blank\">still won\u2019t say how they would vote<\/a> if the House passes the lengthy stopgap next week, and at least eight of them are going to have to cross party lines to advance the measure. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be on him,\u201d the speaker said of Schumer on Fox News. \u201cEverybody in the country will be watching.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The letter House Democratic leaders penned on Friday also warns that the House Republican plan to pass a \u201cfull-year\u201d funding patch \u201cthreatens to cut funding for healthcare, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits through the end of the current fiscal year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While the legislation is not expected to directly cut funding for federal programs, Democratic leaders caution it will empower the Trump administration to continue freezing billions of dollars \u2014 including for veterans, education, law enforcement and housing initiatives \u2014 while Elon Musk leads the cost-cutting efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency. The Democrats also criticized Republicans\u2019 plans to enact a partisan package through the reconciliation process that would bankroll trillions of dollars in tax breaks by cutting safety-net programs like Medicaid and SNAP food assistance to low-income households.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHouse Democrats would enthusiastically support a bill that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans health and Medicaid, but Republicans have chosen to put them on the chopping block to pay for billionaire tax cuts,\u201d the letter said. \u201cWe cannot back a measure that rips away life-sustaining healthcare and retirement benefits from everyday Americans as part of the Republican scheme to pay for massive tax cuts for their wealthy donors like Elon Musk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Democratic leaders said their top appropriator, Connecticut Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51351\" data-person-id=\"51351\">Rosa DeLauro<\/a>, \u201cremains ready to negotiate a meaningful bipartisan spending agreement that puts working people first.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>DeLauro and Congress\u2019 other top appropriators confirmed this week that they were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2025\/03\/05\/congress\/top-appropriators-near-government-funding-deal-ahead-of-shutdown-cliff-00214504\" target=\"_blank\">closing in on a deal<\/a> on overall spending levels for the military and non-defense programs, the first step to finalizing bipartisan bills that would fund the government at updated levels for the remainder of the fiscal year. That agreement has yet to materialize, however, as Johnson insists that a \u201cfull-year\u201d stopgap is the only option House Republicans are considering.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The top three House Democrats stopped short on Friday of urging united opposition in their party to the funding plan Republicans are working to finalize \u2014 with just one week left until federal cash stops flowing. In a letter to members, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}