Shutdown Poker: The Republicans Are Playing A Weak Hand Smarter Than The Democrats

Winning Does Not Require A High Hand, Merely A Higher Hand

A key to understanding political maneuvering is that the game is never one of chess, but one of poker.

A pair of aces can be a winning hand if the other player only has king high. A well executed bluff will beat a full house.

The latest episode of Washington’s eternal soap opera “As The Stomach Churns” suggests the Republicans understand this better than the Democrats. At least, they appear to be playing their shutdown cards better than the Democrats are playing theirs.

First we must pause to note that House Minority Whip Katherine Clark has accomplished an astounding feat—she has replaced House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as the most clueless and artless speaker in the Democrat leadership. She accomplished this momentous feat by frankly admitting that the 42 million SNAP recipients whose benefits are in jeopardy as of November 1 are “leverage” to the Democrats, and she made that admission on, of all places, Fox News.

From her interview with Fox News’ Chad Pergram:

Katherine Clark: You know, shutdowns are terrible for everybody. But what it shows here is an absolute failure on the Republicans’ part to put the American people first.

Chad Pergram: But none of that on the Democrats. I mean, again, and I understand the math in the Senate. I understand the health care position from the Democrats. No responsibility on the Democrats, or at least you don’t think that the public will perceive that the Democrats are responsible.

Katherine Clark: I mean, shutdowns are terrible, and of course there will be families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leveraged times we have. It is an inflection point in this budget process where we have tried to get the Republicans to meet with us and prioritize the American people. And it’s been an absolute refusal. And they were willing to let government shut down when they control the House, the Senate, and the White House, rather than come and talk about an issue as important to the American people as if they can afford health care.

Let’s say the quiet part out loud—”leverage” is exactly what those 42 million people are, and what those 42 million people have always been.

Unpaid air traffic controllers, and the disruptions to air travel that causes, are leverage.

An unpaid military is leverage.

Unpaid DHS, ICE, CBP agents are leverage.

The closure of various and sundry government agencies, some of whom are occasionally useful, is leverage.

Shutdowns are all about leverage.

That does not mean it is a good idea to openly admit it. It is an especially bad idea to openly admit it on the one news channel most likely to take shameless advantage of a Democrat faux pas. It is a staggeringly stupid idea to openly admit it when it invites a few “fact-checking” challenges about who is—and who is not—negotiating.

A quick tally of the negotiating facts:

• It is the Republicans who have offered the Democrats a one-year extension on the Obamacare subsidies. That offer was on the table before the shutdown.

• It was Hakeem Jeffries who openly sneered at it after the shutdown.

• Republicans have been discussing possible compromises on the Obamacare subsidies all along.

• Republican Senator Rand Paul, appearing on “Fox News Sunday”, proposed a bipartisan commission to propose legislative fixes for Obamacare.

  “I suggest that President Trump come forward and name three Republicans and three Democrats in the Senate to an official commission to figure this out over a one-month period and come back with a solution,” Paul said. “But in exchange for that, I think the Democrats need to open the government for a month, and then we need to pay the workers, pay our soldiers.”

• Speaker Mike Johnson was emphatic shortly after the shutdown began that addressing healthcare was a major legislative priority for remainder of the year.

  “Health care is broken in America. It’s too expensive. The quality of care needs to rise. We need more access for more people,” Johnson said Monday. “We have lots of ideas to do that, but that issue is up for debate in the next three months.”

Whether any of these ideas are “enough” for the Democrats is beside the point. They are compromise positions Republicans have publicly articulated, positions which move closer to the Democrats on healthcare, and on the Obamacare subsidies in particular. They are proposals to be considered, discussed, and amended.

Putting proposals on the table is the basis of negotiation. The Republicans have been negotiating all along, and very openly so.

The Democrats could have responded to the one-year extension by asking for a two year extension (pushing the issue past the mid-term elections). They did not.

The Democrats could have added their own ideas to Rand Paul’s commission proposal. They did not.

The Democrats have not put out any proposals. All the Democrats have put out are demands—$1.5 Trillion worth of demands.

Making demands is not negotiation. Making demands is extortion.

The Republicans are using the 42 million SNAP recipients as leverage as well—but they are being far smoother about it.

In a move that should have surprised exactly no one, the Trump Administration reversed its position from September on whether or not it could use SNAP contingency funds to keep the program solvent during the shutdown.

The Trump administration’s position that it cannot extend SNAP benefits during the shutdown is a reversal from the USDA’s stated shutdown contingency plan from late September, which said that “Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown.”

But in a new memo issued late last week and obtained by ABC News, USDA said contingency funds are “only available” when SNAP funds have been approved by Congress.

As a result, no SNAP funding will be going out to the states after the end of the month.

ABC News was less than impressed by the Trump Administration’s sudden concern for legal niceties.

Earlier in the shutdown, the Trump administration redirected others funds to pay service members -- even as it says it can’t do the same with SNAP funding.

They have a point. President Trump has not been afraid to throw a few Constitutional elbows to muscle his agenda through. It is beyond ironic that his Administration is suddenly reluctant to do so over SNAP.

One might almost think the Trump Administration was treating SNAP recipients as “leverage” (what are the odds?).

Democrats are already calling on President Trump to use the contingency funds and keep SNAP afloat.

In a letter Oct. 24 to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Michigan’s six House Democrats, led by U.S. Reps. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Bay City and Hillary Scholten of Grand Rapids, urged the department to use contingency funds to pay SNAP benefits. It is believed those contingency funds if used − as some Democrats say is a legal requirement − could cover SNAP payments for at least a few weeks in November.

If the Democrats are concerned that Trump might be ever-so-kingly in wielding the Executive pen to make that happen, they are hiding it well.

Speaker Johnson, unsurprisingly, is backing the Trump Administration.

On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson argued the contingency funds for SNAP are “not legally available right now” to cover the benefits and pleaded with Democrats to support the clean continuing resolution to reopen the government.

“The reason is because it’s a finite source of funds. It was appropriated by Congress, and if they transfer funds from these other sources, it pulls it away immediately from school meals... So … it’s a trade off,” he said. “There has to be a pre-existing appropriation for the contingency fund to be used.”

Speaker Johnson is being coy by saying this. And why not be coy? With the largest government worker union already telling the Democrats to stand down, now is hardly the time to ease up on the pressure.

Telling the Democrats that Republican hands are tied is only likely to increase Democrat calls to use the contingency funds. The more the Democrats make that call, the more cover the Trump Administration has later. The Democrats will not be able to complain that Trump is violating the law by moving funds around to keep SNAP solvent if they are the ones demanding he move the funds around.

Could the Administration tap the contingency fund if they really wanted? Without a doubt.

Would it be legal? It might not be, but the number of people who care is shrinking rapidly (and will be zero by November 1).

Could the Administration reverse course and do an 11th hour funding of SNAP? They could. They might.

It’s pure speculation on my part, but if they wait to the last minute President Trump could issue an Executive Order declaring the right sort of national emergency Alternatively, he might simply say “get it done.”

Should he find the funding at the last minute, and should the media decide to challenge President Trump about the legality, he can easily fire back “I don’t want people going hungry, unlike the Democrats.” With the Democrats already calling on him to find the funding, the law be damned, what would they have to say if he does other than “thank you”?

Do the Democrats really understand the significance of President Trump doing them a solid by doing whatever he must to keep SNAP solvent during a shutdown Democrats could end tomorrow just by passing the House CR?

Is the Trump Administration bluffing about not being able to locate funds to keep SNAP going during the shutdown? That is a possibility. It is equally a possibility that, as the contingency fund would only sustain SNAP for a few weeks, President Trump might not see any point in jumping through that particular set of hoops.

What is a certainty is that Trump and the Republicans are using SNAP recipients as leverage just as much as the Democrats are. They’re just clever enough not to say that part out loud.

I am certain that anyone who has ever been in financial straits and not known where they were getting their next meal will have a certain empathy for SNAP recipients being thrown into the lurch this way.

Even if one believes that welfare programs like SNAP are inherently a bad idea, this is not how one goes about reducing or cancelling such a program. Regardless of SNAP’s merits and demerits as a government program, SNAP recipients have a commitment from the government to provide a discrete level of nutrition assistance each month, and that commitment is right now not being honored due to the shutdown.

That’s not okay. One does not promise to feed the hungry and then renege on the promise because “politics”.

In this regard, the whole of Washington, Donald Trump included, should be ashamed of this shutdown Kabuki crap. Turning potential food insecurity into the stuff of political theater is obscene no matter who is doing it. This should not be happening. SNAP should not be thrown into the hazard this way.

Yet, nauseating though this sorry episode is, it is the game that the Democrats and Republicans are playing with this latest shutdown. It is a poker game, and the Democrats do not know if President Trump is bluffing when he says he can’t fund SNAP or not. They do not know how much funding the Trump Administration might be able to scrounge to keep SNAP going.

No, the Democrats and the Republicans should not be treating American voters as “leverage.” Not over SNAP, not over Obamacare, not over anything.

But if they are going to be dumb enough to use voters as “leverage”, they need to be smart enough not to openly admit to doing it.

Right now the Republicans are showing they understand that, and the Democrats are showing they do not.

That means the Republicans’ weak hand on the shutdown is very likely stronger than the Democrats even weaker hand, and that’s all the Republicans need to prevail in this shutdown.