Tensions flared at a House hearing to advance legislation aimed at ending the government shutdown on Tuesday night, with two senior lawmakers on opposite sides of the aisle trading barbs over the fallout.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., clashed with Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee repeatedly at the outset of the hearing. Cole accused Democrats of derailing the federal government, while McGovern railed against the GOP’s refusal to attach provisions extending expiring enhanced Obamacare subsidies to its funding bill.
‘This is the stuff you said you would never do. ‘We would never shut down the government. We would never do this.’ That’s exactly what you’ve done,’ House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said a short while later. ‘You’re putting thousands of people out of work.’
McGovern, who said emphatically that his constituents were ‘getting screwed,’ said, ‘You tried over 50 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act,’ Obamacare’s formal name.
He said he was getting calls from constituents who were ‘out of their minds’ trying to figure out how to pay for healthcare without the subsidies.’
‘Well the most immediate crisis in my district are the thousands of workers that you and your colleagues have put out of work, that aren’t getting a paycheck,’ Cole said.
‘They’re the ones that keep the airplanes flying. They’re the ones that do the national weather center. They’re wondering why they’re not getting paid.’
McGovern shot back, ‘You get no calls about healthcare?’
‘We could have had these debates, we could have had these arguments. Why are they being held hostage?’ Cole continued.
‘The healthcare issue you’re talking about is a subsidy you passed on your own, you said it was COVID-related…The most immediate crisis in my district, you’ve created. My people aren’t getting paid thanks to you and your colleagues.’
McGovern, who tried to interject multiple times, said, ‘So nobody in your district is complaining about healthcare?’
Cole conceded, ‘People complain everywhere about everything, but you asked me what the most important calls I get —’
McGovern cut him off with, ‘—We have a chance to do something about this.’
‘— is, ‘Why am I not getting paid? Why am I being forcibly furloughed?’’ Cole continued.
‘We have a chance to do something to help millions of people afford their health insurance. And what you’re all telling me is you’re not interested,’ McGovern said.
House Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., was ignored as she banged her gavel multiple times in an attempt to call order.
Cole, meanwhile, said the subsidies ‘have nothing to do with the work of my committee.’
‘But you’re willing to hijack my committee,’ he continued, before McGovern cut him off again, accusing Republicans of voting to ‘cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires’ in the GOP’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ earlier this year.
‘But you could not extend these for people?’ McGovern asked.
The House Rules Committee is the final hurdle for most legislation before it sees House-wide votes. Lawmakers on the key panel vote to advance a bill while setting terms for its consideration, like possible amendment votes and timing for debate.
The funding bill at hand is expected to advance through the committee on party lines. Democrats on the panel are likely to oppose the measure in line with House Democratic leaders, while Republicans have signaled no meaningful opposition.
The vast majority of House Democrats have threatened to oppose the bill over its exclusion of the enhanced Obamacare credits, despite the legislation netting support from eight members of their own party in the Senate.
Republican leaders have signaled a willingness to discuss reforms to the system, which they have criticized as flawed. However, they’ve rejected any notion of pairing a healthcare extension with a federal funding bill that is otherwise largely free of partisan policy riders.