The senior senator from Minnesota stages a little useless theater at the U.S. Capitol. In the 18-second video, posted Thursday, she appears to peek into the House chamber, only to see an empty room, in her telling. The actual chamber is never shown, so you’ll just have to take her word for its emptiness. The script reads,
All by myself…
Knocked at the door of the House chamber and no Republicans to be found.
They need to get back to work and stop health insurance premiums from doubling.
Sen. Klobuchar (D-Small Things) has voted at least seven times to keep the government shut down unless Republicans meet the Democrats’ ever-shifting list of demands for re-opening.
The U.S. House already did its part, passing a spending bill last month, keeping the government going through the end of October. That’s the same bill she’s voted “no” on a baker’s half-dozen times.
In her imagining, House Republicans are supposed to be assembled inside the chamber, feverishly working to implement her policies.
The Democrats’ latest fixation involves taxpayer subsidies for Obamacare, which are set to expire at the end of the year. As I understand it, the current expiration date was picked by Democrats, including Klobuchar, without a single Republican vote.
Now in the minority, Democrats have had a change of heart and want the majority Republicans to undo the Democrats’ past work.
As I’ve written before, there doesn’t seem to be a natural end to the current stalemate. Next week, federal workers, including the military, will miss their first paycheck. Some are pointing to an Oct. 18 “no kings” rally as a trigger point. The only real date of significance is Oct. 31, when the current House spending bill expires.
The Hill newspaper tells me that Democrats have already won,
Democrats are feeling increasingly emboldened about their position and have made it clear they do not intend to back off their health care funding demands. If Congress doesn’t act in the next three weeks, Americans across the country will see major increases in their insurance premiums when open enrollment begins in November.
Here “Americans” appears to refer to about 0.4 percent of the population that benefits from the subsidies at risk. Not 40 percent. Not 4 percent. 0.4 percent.
Meanwhile, about 3 million federal workers, or about 1 percent of the population, will miss a paycheck next week.
You do the math.
