After all their talk about its importance, it was Democrats who left a 6-year funding package for the Children’s Health Insurance Program on the table, not Republicans.
In the budget negotiations on Friday Democrats faced two options. The first was to fully fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program for 6 years, keep the government open and keep negotiating on DACA. The second was to not fund CHIP, shut down the government and keep negotiating on DACA. The Democrats chose the greater of two evils. In the hope of gaining political traction, they shot down funding for a program they have said is crucial.
Just days ago, Democratic spokes-celebrity Jimmy Kimmel was making impassioned pleas to fund CHIP. Think of the children, he said. Well, that’s going to have to wait until we see the polling on who gets blamed for the government shutdown. For the meager price of a one-month extension of the government, Democrats drove the bus over the sick kids they have been moralizing about for a year.
Yesterday President Donald Trump invited Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to the White House to hash it out. For a few hours it looked promising. Two reasonable men tried to work out an agreement. But it was not to be. Some reporting suggests that Chief of Staff John Kelly killed the deal, but whatever happened, the House-approved Continuing Resolution that funded CHIP was always an option on the table for Schumer.
Let’s be clear that the worst-case scenario for Democrats under this CR was that a month from now we would be back at the drawing board with CHIP fully funded. One less — pardon the pun — chip for the GOP to play.
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