Blame game in New York as shutdown hits health care, food programs

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — New Yorkers woke to a federal government shutdown on Wednesday because Congress failed to pass a spending bill or Continuing Resolution—a temporary extension of current funding—by the October 1 deadline. Republican and Democratic officials from New York blamed each other.

From the Right

Republicans in Congress and conservative leaders said Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic congressional leaders from New York manufactured the shutdown. Republican Represenatives Nick Langworthy, Nicole Malliotakis, and Claudia Tenney, plus New York State Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar, called it the Schumer Shutdown.

Republicans argue that Schumer-led Senate Democrats blocked a “clean” CR to keep the government open, free of controversial policy changes and backed by Republican House and Senate majorities. They insist that they voted to fund the government to keep debating issues while Democrats shut it down to prioritize open borders and handouts for undocumented immigrants.

Malliotakis pointed out that all but three Democratic senators voted to shut down the government, when seven votes could have passed the CR.

Tenney claimed Democrats “shut down the government because President Trump refused to give free health care to illegals,” adding that they’re “punishing American families to reward those who broke our laws.”

Republican Representative Elise Stefanik said the CR blocked by Democrats was the same bill that they previously voted for just months ago. She claimed Democrats, “cheered on by Kathy Hochul,” forced the shutdown “by concocting an unrelated policy issue that doesn’t even come up legislatively until the end of the year.”

And Representatives Nick LaLota and Mike Lawler, both Republicans, announced that they were refusing pay until the shutdown ends. LaLota challenged Democrats who voted against the CR to do the same.

Lawler urged colleagues to “vote to keep the government open and hash out our differences in the appropriations process, and, where applicable, at the ballot box.” He said a shutdown “hurts families, workers, our brave men and women in the military, our economy, and much, much more.”

From the Left

At a press conference near the Statue of Liberty on Wednesday, Governor Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James, and Democratic state legislators condemned the shutdown, blaming President Donald Trump, LaLota, Langworthy, Lawler, Malliotakis, Tenney, Stefanik, and Republican Representative Andrew Garbarino. They called for the Republican delegation to stand up for their constituents instead of bowing to the president.

“They alone are responsible for this,” Hochul said. “They hold all the levers of power.” She said the state can’t afford bail out the federal government by backfilling a $93 billion hole. Calling the shutdown deliberate, reckless, chaotic, and cruel, the governor said it is “extinguishing all hope that Washington could find a path to avoid inflicting pain on millions of Americans.”

In a fiery speech, James called the shutdown “another example of more chaos and confusion and pain to New Yorkers” from the federal government. She talked about the impact on thousands of workers in New York City, on Long Island, and upstate who would be furloughed, and that programs like Head Start to food pantries would be damaged.

State Senate Democratic leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins accused the president of orchestrating the shutdown because he believe it would only hurt lefty programs that care for the poor, veterans, children, seniors, and those who need health care. She called out Washington’s dysfunction:

Hochul’s office claimed some specific figures:

• About 2.8 million low-income New Yorkers seeing cuts from SNAP—sometimes called food stamps
• About 442,000 women and children in New York relying on WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) seeing benefits cut
• Over 100,000 federal workers in the state could be furloughed or at risk of going unpaid

The central issue for Democrats in the shutdown fight is expiring premium tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. Hochul warned that millions of New Yorkers would see their health care premiums “skyrocket, even up to $3,000 a year” without the subsidies.

In a press release, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called the shutdown a health care crisis for 20 million Americans. She said that working families face “impossible choices: pay rent or see a doctor; put food on the table or buy their child’s medication.”

From non-legislative groups

Advocacy and labor groups also voiced concerns about how the shutdown will affects New York. Citizen Action of New York blamed “extremist politicians in D.C.” and the seven New York Republicans in Congress for manufacturing chaos that puts millions of families at risk.

Rachel Sabella, Director of No Kid Hungry New York, warned that a prolonged shutdown could force countless New Yorkers into hunger by jeopardizing SNAP and WIC. She pointed out that over half of New York families are already going into debt to purchase food and 80% of families say food costs rise faster than their incomes. She warned that the longer the shutdown, the more “dire the consequences will be for New York families.”

1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East—a union representing over 450,000 healthcare workers in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, and Washington, D.C.—called on Congress to enact a budget that prioritizes working families. President Yvonne Armstrong called it “morally bankrupt for Trump and Republican leaders to use a government shutdown as leverage to enact massive Medicaid cuts that will harm millions of Americans.” She argued that “extremist politicians” are raising health care costs and closing hospitals to “further enrich their billionaire donors.”