Emmer Says End to Longest Government Shutdown Near, Blames Democrats for Unnecessary Stalemate

(KNSI) – Minnesota’s Sixth District Congressman Tom Emmer is pleased that the end of the government shutdown is in sight.

The Republican House Majority Whip, the fourth-highest-ranking position in the party leadership, was a guest on KNSI Wednesday morning. He says the 43-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, was unnecessary, and that Democrats who voted against reopening the government gained nothing “It’s the exact same, clean, continuing resolution that the House passed on September 19th. The only change on the CR is that they [Democrats] extended it to January 30th,” said Emmer, “I don’t know why the American people had to suffer through this, and I know that they [the American people] are going to figure out who did it to them.”

The impasse was in the U.S. Senate, where, after a weeks long stalemate, eight Senate Democrats crossed the political aisle and voted to start funding federal offices again. The U.S. House is expected to vote on the bill Wednesday evening or Thursday.

As for the cuts in healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act — the reason Emmer says Democrats claimed they voted against funding the government — those cuts are gone. “We’re not giving them what they want.” Democrats had wanted to extend the COVID-era tax credits that helped people buy private health coverage on state-run insurance exchanges.

Those receiving food assistance and other programs that were recently paused will begin getting benefits after the bill passes the House and is signed by the President.

Government workers who showed up without a check will get back pay, but Emmer says that the President told him federal workers who were let go are out of luck. “He’s not going to bring back the people that they fired. They were unnecessary; otherwise they’d still be there.”

Since the shutdown began on October 1st, 4,000 federal workers’ positions have been eliminated. This includes people in the treasury, health, homeland security, energy, and education departments.

Emmer warned that it may still take time to get airports back to a normal schedule after officials order a 10% reduction to give overworked air traffic controllers a break.

Despite the Senate breakthrough, Emmer expects all the Democrats in the House to vote against the bill, meaning Republicans need every member present in Washington, D.C., before they can start the debate.

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