Schumer's Shutdown Drags On, as Airlines Cancel Hundreds of Flights

government subsidized pre-K, that sort of thing, all of this inflicted damage or potential damage of this long shutdown. I think that is an instructive comment. I also think just what a ridiculous interpretation of Tuesday's elections. So Democrats have these big wins this week. And I don't think what voters were, you know, crying out for was more. partisan stunts in Washington. They were sending Trump a message about the soft economy and wanting to check Trump's excesses. And so it's silly that Democrats are saying, oh, okay, well, we'll just meet the moment with our own excesses and just keep the government shut down because we think it turns out our base and we think it's a good brand moment for us. But Kim, Democrats want something out of this. They have hung their hat on extensions. of these Obamacare subsidies, whether the timeline that they go for, Chuck Schumer seems to now be satisfied with a year. And they think their leverage has gone up. I think it has gone up and down throughout this 38-day long shutdown. I... It looked to me like Chuck Schumer's leverage was pretty low when he began this, in part because it sure seemed like part of the reason he was going down this road after not shutting down the government earlier this year was he got some blowback from his left and he's worried maybe about a primary challenge. If Democrats think their leverage is going up, do you see any indication that Republicans are about to give in and about to cave on this question? No. And this is the kind of joke. Nothing fundamental about the dynamics. Washington D.C. have actually changed as a result of this election, whatever Chris Murphy might tell himself or his base. I mean, the fundamental reality is Republicans had already, even before this shutdown began, wanted to have a conversation about what needs to be done about these particular Obamacare subsidies. There's a divide in the Republican Party about how you go forward about that. Some people would like to see them extended just free and clear. Some of the moderates, that is a significantly greater. portion of the party wants to not extend them at all. And then there's a sort of middle group that is willing to possibly extend them, but only at the price of some real reforms and changes to the way those particular subsidies go out and potentially also underlying Obamacare provisions. This has all been out there for a long time that this is the conversation to be had, but it was put alongside the fact that Republicans said, we're not having that conversation until the government reopened. Democrats know that. Republicans know that. They're not going to back down on that primary thing just because of an election. I think one thing that Democrats have a little bit of leverage on is if you look at the polls, there's a suggestion that more people do blame Republicans than blame Democrats. But you also have to remember that for a lot of Republicans, you know, for as much as Chris Murphy is talking about, yay, our base, Republicans see this as a bit of a winner with their base, too.

have not changed. And I think this is more a question of just how much pain are Democrats willing to inflict on the country in order, as case said, to satisfy this maybe 25, 30 percent, you know, out there that is their progressive base that wants to see this happen versus the whole rest of the country that's getting quite sick to death of it. And I put myself in that category. Hang tight. We'll be right back in a moment. This podcast is brought to you by ReliaQuest. Cybercriminals are constantly attacking. They want your data. They want your identity. They want your innovation. Reliacquest fortifies your business with agentic defense, AI that detects, contains, and eliminates cyber threats in minutes. It helps your security team move faster at the work that matters most to protect the business now and delivers insights to help them predict what's next. ReliQuest, agentic defense for the enterprise. Learn more at ReliQuest.com. That's R-E-L-I-A-Q-U-E-S-T.com. This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. Washington Wise from Charles Schwab is an original podcast that unpacks the stories making news in Washington. Listen at Schwab.com slash Washington Wise.

Welcome back. It's a fair point that there are two kind of separable questions here. One is this question about these Obamacare subsidies. And two is whether that is part of a negotiation or not to open and fund the government. And, Kate, I do think Republicans have some high ground on that question, not allowing a party that does not control any element of the federal government, neither branch of Congress nor the White House, to say, we won't give you the votes to get up. funding bill pass the filibuster until we get X, Y, and Z. If you allow that dynamic to succeed, then I think you're going to get many more attempts at doing that, which, by the way, I think was basically what Democrats said when Republicans were in the minority trying to shut down the government and getting President Obama to defund Obamacare to pick one of those pointless fights. Then I think then we get to this bigger question, which is if the government gets open and funded. where are Republicans on those Obamacare subsidies? And it seems to my eye that that discussion has not really broken through yet on whether it makes sense to keep these pandemic subsidies going and allow basically free federal government subsidized health care plans for many people. Well, I think Chuck Schumer's latest offer on Friday. is a testament to how far we haven't gotten on this question because he's basically just renewing what Democrats have already demanded. His fig leaf is a, we'll just do a one-year extension. But those who cover Washington understand it doesn't matter if it's one year or two-year or five because it just sets up another deadline where Congress will eventually, you know, just continue it on and replay this kind of pressure cycle that we're seeing right now. So one-year extension is not a concession from Democrats. And I think really that like Kim was saying, the Republican conference really understands that any clean, just whooping these through without any changes, without limiting, you know, the incomes people can have while they also get these subsidies, for instance, it's just a non-starter. And so even the moderate Republicans who. are, you know, nervous about the politics of the expiring subsidies have said, we need to at least put some restraints on these subsidies so that they aren't going to couples who earn, you know, $500,000 of income a year. So again, I don't think there is any truck in the one-year Obamacare extension that Chuck Schumer is offering. After the government opens, that happens, I think Republicans have said they are willing to discuss Obamacare, but they can't guarantee an outcome because... The Affordable Care Act is deeply unpopular in their conference. And for good reason. I mean, all we're talking about in the conversation about Obamacare subsidies is how much of the premium are taxpayers going to pay. We're not debating how much the premiums are going up. It's just an exposure question of whether the public should bail out this program and insulate people from having to pay the full sicker price for it. And I think there is a reluctance in the GOP to just paper over some of those real problems. in Obamacare. And I think it's going to be really hard to get a deal on Obamacare that's better than just allowing those subsidies to expire. Now, real quick, I mean, the election has put so much focus on the affordability issue. And health care should be part of that conversation. I mean, spending tens of thousands of dollars for health insurance as a family just even before it really kicks in to cover services. I mean, people are outraged about that. So I think Republicans really should use this opening to drive a large...

conversation about Obamacare because healthcare is part of that affordability issue that voters don't like. And they can offer some different solutions than Democrats who are like, let's just throw 500 billion more at it. And even though over the past 15 years it's just gotten more and more expensive, we'll just throw more money down after it. And I think Republicans can do better than that. The pain that the shutdown is imposing on the public, though, is going up day by day, it seems to me, Kim. And a big story this week are these cancellations of hundreds of airline flights. Let's listen to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announcing a reduction from the FAA in air traffic at many airports across the country. There is going to be a 10% reduction. in capacity at 40 of our locations. The administrator is going to tell you that this is data-based. This is not based on what airline travels, has more flights out of what location. This is about where is the pressure and how do we alleviate the pressure? He said in another interview that if the shutdown continues, the FAA might move us from 10% to 15%, maybe to 20%. unquote. And Kim, that is a huge problem. That is an economic problem for the United States. It's a problem for all those travelers whose flights get canceled. And remember, there are people who are going on vacation, but there are also people going to weddings and funerals, people going to the Mayo Clinic, people going to St. Jude Children's Hospital. I have a lot of sympathy for those people who have nothing to do with this vicaring in Congress and this effort by Chuck Schumer to get this extension of these Obamacare subsidies who are. just getting notified that, whoops, your flight is canceled. Yeah, this was always in the books. And one thing that's interesting to me is that this was the thing that actually ended the last long shutdown we had, the one that was 35 days, because air traffic control began to fall apart. And it was such an inconvenience that both sides called uncle in the end. And they've managed to get by a lot longer this time before that's happened. But now it's happening. It was always kind of in the books because you can't ask these air traffic controllers. They've already missed one paycheck. Their second one they're going to miss is going to be on Tuesday. TSA agents are also not getting paid. So that's another aspect of this. We're talking about canceled flights, but there are beginning to be stories of lines really backing up in airport security because there are also people calling it. and sick. And both of these, both air traffic control and TSA, they sort of operate. They've had strained problems in recent years already because they're struggling to keep up with capacity. So there's not a lot of give in the system. Remarkable thing, I think some Americans have no idea just how many flights actually go every day and what kind of inconvenience this is. By Friday afternoon, we had canceled 780 flights. Now, think about how many flights that is, 780 flights of planes not going where they're meant to go. That's only 3% of air traffic travel for a day.

And so as Duffy noted there, it's going to incrementally creep up 4%, probably by the end of Friday, and then by November 14th, which is week from now, 10%. And then we can assume that if... things still aren't settled at that point, that those numbers will continue to go up fractionally every day. There's good reason to do this, by the way, too, because, I mean, this is not in any way to punish anyone or even to punish Democrats. There are legitimate questions growing here about the capacity to safely handle flights when you have people that are out. And the indication, and I think correct belief is that the numbers of FAA... air traffic controllers who are calling in as out sick are going to start increasing dramatically so Right now, the airlines are doing their best to try to minimize the hassle. For instance, I was reading that some of the airlines that are going to have to do these cuts are trying to simply cut some of their really routine flights, the ones where they have a lot. So for instance, American flies 10 flights a day from Tampa to Miami. So it, for instance, is cutting back two of those. So now instead of 10 opportunities to get back and forth between those cities, you'll have eight. But they're not going to be able to minimize that pain as the cuts. go up. And, you know, we're going to be looking at a situation here, like you just noted, Kyle, if there's only one flight that goes to your destination from one airline on that day and it gets canceled, you don't get there. At least you don't get there via error. And you might not know when you do. And that's really going to start impacting business, not to mention people's personal affairs. Hang tight. We'll be right back after one more break. This podcast is brought to you by ReliaQuest. Cybercriminals are constantly attacking. They want your data. They want your identity. They want your innovation. RelyQuest fortifies your business with a gentic defense, AI that detects, contains, and eliminate cyber threats in minutes. It helps your security team move faster at the work that matters most to protect the business now and delivers insights to help them predict what's next. RelyaQuest. Agentic Defense for the Enterprise. Learn more at ReliQuest.com. That's R-E-L-I-A-Q-U-E-S-T.com. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker, play the Opinion, Potomac Watch podcast. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Welcome back. The other thing that strikes me about this, Kate, is that it is a bonkers way to run the air transportation system of a huge, rich, wealthy, successful country like the United States. So Secretary Duffy in an ABC interview last weekend said a couple of things I thought were notable. One is this, there is a level of risk that gets injected into the system when we have a controller that's doing two jobs instead of one, unquote. And the officials are saying that the air system is

safe and that they are taking these steps to reduce flights to ensure that it remains safe. But let's hope that there is no kind of mishap or incident that can be traced to an overworked, underslept, not being paid air traffic controller. And then two, he talked about the hard choices that are facing some of these controllers who may be calling out sick, even though they're supposed to be working. He said, this, they have to make a decision. Do I go to work and not get a paycheck and not put food on the table? Or do I drive? for Uber or DoorDash or Wait Tables, unquote. And, I mean, Kate, there was an effort in the First Trump administration that President Trump supported to spin off air traffic control to some kind of nonprofit and they could fund it with fees instead of taxes and have that succeeded. We would not be in the situation because the air traffic system would be running separate, unrelated to this government shutdown and this disagreement in Congress. It's hard for me to understand what the argument against that is. So why did that fail in the first Trump administration? Well, it failed in the first Trump administration because a panoply of interest groups opposed it. You know, kind of hobbyist aviation groups don't necessarily like it because they don't want to pay fees to use the airspace. Rural airports didn't like it, even though they could really benefit if they could have remote control towers or other technological innovations that FAA has struggled to. provide. I mean, the word privatization of air traffic control is spooky to people, even though it really shouldn't be most developed countries run their air systems spun off that way, like Canada, for instance. And it actually is arguably much safer because it would free up the FAA to focus on being a safety regulator as opposed to delivering this high-tech service. And so it was a solid proposal in 2017 that had support from airlines that had support from the controllers unions that really want better technology that FAA is struggling to deliver. I mean, the classic example of that is like these paper flight strips that they pass around to keep track of airplanes, which as, you know, you're using better tech than that on your GPS and car play, you know? So this is the kind of sclerotic nature of it being a government body. And so this would be a real... opening to start rebuilding the intellectual case for spinning off air traffic services and getting a better user experience for Americans and making it so that air traffic control isn't at the mercy of, you know, 400 members of Congress. I mean, I think that, you know, might be a better way to spend shutdown time than the president declaring that we need to nuke the filibuster or any number of other subjects that have instead been occupying a lot of a dialogue. Well, that is where I was going next. President Trump's solution proposed now to end this government shutdown is to end the Senate filibuster, the 60-vote rule to cut off debate and advance legislation. Let's listen to him making that argument on Wednesday.

I have to get the country up and the way we're going to do it this afternoon is to terminate the fellow bus. And it's possible you're not going to do that. And I'm going to go by you wishes. You're very smart people. We're good friends. But I think it's a tremendous mistake, really. It would be a tragic mistake, actually. It's time. It's time. If I thought they weren't going to approve, I'd sort of be with you. It'd be fine. I'd be neutral to with you. But knowing that they're going to pass it as soon as they... get any semblance of control, they'll pass the first thing, then it's like we have to do it first. And we have two years. And we'll end up with two, three years, and we'll have this country so perfect. We will have passed more legislation than any Congress and any group of senators or a group of congressmen. And we will get it through. They'll send it to us. We'll send it to them. It'll be a beautiful machine. Kim, what say you? You know, look, I understand where Donald Trump is coming from. I really do. Like, first of all, just to be, give him his due, he has consistently hated the filibuster. He made these arguments in his first term, too. And, you know, he doesn't like it just on principle because, in part, he thinks that it's undemocratic. It really sort of messes with his head the notion that you have to have 60 votes when it just ought to be majority rule, right? Like, he just sort of has that attitude. He doesn't really appreciate the institutional. cooling saucer aspects of the Senate. And it just doesn't fit with his approach to how he does anything, which is if I want to get it done, it should get done tomorrow or it should get done today. It should be done already. And anything that stands in his way, he doesn't like. So I get that. I nonetheless think he is wrong on pretty much every aspect of his argument here. First of all, I think it's really bad politics for the current situation, meaning one, if Republicans use this to end the current shutdown, it gets Democrats completely off the hook for all of the... misbehavior and the intransigence that they've had so far and all of the pain and agony on this country, they're just extracted from that situation and from having to do anything. Two, it also does their dirty work for them. They have been demanding for years that the filibuster go away. They lacked the votes to do it. But wouldn't they just love to say, look, Republicans did it first. Now, of course, we're completely emancipated to do it. Whereas Republicans are arguing, just get rid of the filibuster. This suggestion is just get rid of it for appropriations so that we can. open the government again. Democrats will take that and run. They will jam through everything. And that's the other problem is, you know, Donald Trump says, oh, we'll pass everything we want. It'll be a great two years. And then Democrats will win and they will come in. And the things that they will pass will be absolutely horrifying to every Republican in the country. And, you know, we can go through the list, a national law federalizing elections, making everybody look like California, reconstituting and changing the Supreme Court, you know, create. two new states with four new Democratic senators. I mean, they will go as big as they can possibly go. I get the point, too, about saying, well, you know, if we don't do it, they're going to do it, except for he made that argument.

back in 2017, and we're this many years on, and we still have the filibuster. And that's in part because you had institutional pushback in the Democratic Party. People note that Mansion and Cinema are gone. I get that, except for that there are other people that are still really reluctant to get rid of this. And you never know how parties are going to change, what the next election is going to bring. It all seems like a very poor way to go down the road. I just, I don't get it. That's my concern as well, Kate, is there was a reason. that the Senate is supposed to be different from the House. The founders, the old story is that they created the House to channel the passions, the heat of the public and the people. And then that legislation is supposed to get poured into the cooling saucer of the Senate. And my worry is, if you don't have the 60-vote filibuster rule, you're going to get wild swings in public policy. If either party can remake the entire federal government with a bear. 51% vote in both chambers. And by the way, if you think that politics and United States elections are heated now, wait until that's the case. And every election will decide whether there are going to be new states created or maybe 16 justices on the next Supreme Court. So, Kate, I mean, do you think that there are enough Republicans, institutionalists who still know... why the Senate was supposed to be different than the House. I mean, President Trump can be pretty persuasive. There is an axi-o story now quoting an unnamed Trump advisor saying that he plans to make their lives a living hell if they do not end the filibuster. Here, listen to this. He will call them at 3 o'clock in the morning. He will blow them up in their districts. He will call them an American. He will call them old creatures of a dying institution. unquote. Do you suppose that's going to be very persuasive? Yeah, I would add a couple points to this. You're making the strong cases there. But the argument is always one that the Democrats will do it anyway, right? So why don't we just do it now? Well, first of all, one reason not to do it now is because the center-right coalition generally thinks that constraints on wild swings in government are a good thing. I'd also add to that, too, consider for a moment that it's been a liability, a political liability to the Democrats that they've been willing to run Rothshod over half the... country that disagrees with them. Why would Republicans want to start doing the same thing or own busting this norm if Democrats are going to do it anyway and pay a price for it? I think Republicans wouldn't even get very much out of it. I mean, so it is November the 7th. There's an election a year from now. The Republicans have already passed their big budget bill. Washington turns away from doing much in an election year anyway. So you're telling me that what Republicans are going to get is opening the government in exchange for breaking the filibuster. And then the Democrats can take power and then, you know, do everything they want to do and make DC a state and whatnot and try to build a permanent majority. that just doesn't seem like a very good deal to me, even if you think that the filibuster is worth breaking. But then finally, the reason why I am hopeful that even though the president seems intent on increasing the pressure on senators, the reason why I'm not sure that will work is because to break the filibuster because of the character of the Senate would basically turn, each senator has a lot of power and influence because of the filibuster and because of the majorities that are required to pass things. And so.

to break the filibuster would make each senator, you know, the equivalent of a House backbencher. And I understand that doesn't have a lot of sway maybe with the public, but I do think that has sway with senators who don't want to give up their institutional prerogatives. So like I said, have some principles, bad political deal, and no senator wants to become irrelevant in his own institution. And I hope those arguments will carry the day. Thank you, Kate and Kim. Thank you all for listening. You can email us at PW Podcast at WSJ.com. If you like the show, please hit that subscribe button. And we'll be back next week with another edition of Potomac Watch. This podcast is brought to you by ReliQuest. Cybercriminals are constantly attacking. They want your data. They want your identity. They want your innovation. RelyQuest fortifies your business with agentic defense, AI that detects, contains, and eliminate cyber threats in minutes. It helps your security team move faster at the work that matters most to protect the business now and delivers insights to help them predict what's next. ReliaQuest, agentic defense for the enterprise. Learn more at ReliQuest.com. That's r-E-L-I-A-Q-U-E-S-T.com.