Late Sunday night enough Senate Democrats agreed to a deal with Senate Republicans to reopen the government. This deal did not address the major concerns Defend Public Health has been advocating about. It did not even temporarily restore the insurance premium credits – the central Democratic demand but instead accepted an up or down vote in December on a Democratic bill that would address the insurance premium issue with no promise of any Republican votes in support nor any guarantee that the House would take up the Democratic bill. The agreement extends the operations of the federal government on a continuing resolution until the end of January but does NOT provide any guardrails against President Trump or OMB Director Vought cavalierly ignoring congressional intent – as they have done all year. Finally, the agreement does provide for full funding of SNAP (food stamps) thorough the entire fiscal year and does restore back pay for furloughed federal works and eliminates any RIFs implemented during the shutdown.

The House will be voting on the continuing resolution later this week. Depending on how many defections there are from the Republican party, if Democrats hold firm they could stop this deal.

Regardless, members of the Democratic House Caucus need to hear immediately how you feel about this agreement so they stand firm for the principles that began this fight.