Washington Post Editorial Board: Democrats’ Shutdown Demands Are Irresponsible

There’s a bit of both-sidesing in this editorial because, well, this is still the Washington Post we’re talking about. Still, the main thrust here is that Democrats shut down the government and even their justification for doing it is dishonest and irresponsible.

President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats used covid-19 to justify chasing the mirage of a European-style welfare state without raising the necessary taxes to pay for it. Now, prodded by the left, party leaders have shut down the government in a bid to permanently extend what was sold in 2021 as emergency subsidies to help people struggling during the pandemic afford health insurance.

No equivocating about who shut down the government. It was Dems. And the reason is to make emergency spending permanent without ever mentioning the emergency part that justified it in the first place.

And that’s followed by a summary of Biden era spending that should make Democrats grimace.

The U.S. national debt stands at $37.9 trillion, a figure that dwarfs the annual gross domestic product of every other country. It has grown dramatically since the pandemic. In the 2019 fiscal year, the federal government spent $5.47 trillion but took in only $4.26 trillion. Five years later, spending clocked in at $6.75 trillion as revenue failed to keep up with this dramatic expansion of government…

Yet Democrats have demanded that Republicans agree to extend the covid-era insurance subsidies without proposing any way to pay for it. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this will cost $350 billion over the next decade. These temporary benefits were included in the American Rescue Plan of March 2021 and extended the next year in the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act until the end of 2025.

But this may be my favorite part of all, in which the Post recounts the failure of the Affordable Care Act to be affordable.

The real problem is that the Affordable Care Act was never actually affordable. President Barack Obama’s signature achievement allowed people to buy insurance on marketplaces with subsidies based on their income. The architects of the program assumed that risk pools would be bigger than they turned out to be. As a result, policies cost more than expected.

To salvage the program, Democrats expanded subsidies to entice more people to buy plans. Many poor families wound up getting insurance for free, and the rolls grew: 24 million people now have coverage through the ACA exchanges. 

As I pointed out here last week, Dems’ emergency spending on Obamacare succeeded in roughly doubling the number of people enrolled in the program. And that was largely thanks to a jump in the number of people eligible for free insurance. After fifteen years, Obamacare has barely worked as a marketplace but it has always worked as a giveaway. That was always part of the design. It was a single payer starter project which could be expanded by simply shoveling more government money into it over time. That’s what Democrats are trying to do now with this shutdown.

Again, I can’t believe this is the Washington Post, but this next paragraph ought to be plated in bronze and set in stone outside the building so Post staffers see it on the way in to the office every day.

This is how entitlement programs work. Once you habituate people to some generous government handout, they grow dependent on it. And it becomes politically perilous, if not impossible, to fully claw it back. Conservatives fought so hard to stop Obamacare 15 years ago because they anticipated fights like this one.

The editorial ends in the somewhat dejected conclusion that Republicans might eventually give in to Democrats’ demands.

The likeliest outcome of the shutdown is that both sides agree to spend more money without paying for it, let alone being honest with voters about the tradeoffs too many have ignored for too long.

I think this is what comes out when you filter the message through an editorial board that is depressive and ideologically captured at the same time. What the authors should have said, what they really wanted to say was this:

Hold the line, Republicans! Don’t give in to the hostage takers’ demands. You can win this one for the country by just saying no and sticking to it.

Of course the Post would never go that far but that really is what they are saying. And you can tell that’s true just by looking at the comments. It’s chock full of upset Democrats who don’t like what the Post is saying. For example:

“Slanted analysis. Do better.”

There are also lots and lots of people arguing everything would be fine if we just taxed the rich. That’s another lie that the Post might want to tackle at some point. But there are a few people in the comments who get it.

I see lots of “soak the rich” comments.

But a median family income retired couple paid less than 4 percent of gross income in Federal Income Taxes in 2024.

There are so many of clustered around the median. that a slight increase, say to 5 percent of gross income, would do wonders to the deficit.

Never mind the rich; there are not enough of them to make a difference in the aggregate federal income.

IF we want something, we should be willing to pay for it.

There aren’t enough rich people to pay off all of our debt, not even if we took 100% of their wealth as opposed to just taxing their income. It will never happen. The only way to make health care into a freebie for all, as Democrats really want, is to double taxes (at least) on everyone who pays them. Let’s see Democrats be honest about that for once and then try to get it passed.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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