What would you have done?

More to the point: What will you do?

We know both Michigan U.S. senators, Democrats Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin, refused to split with their caucus to vote for a proposal to end what is now the longest U.S. government shutdown in our history, more than 40 days. Senate Democrats, most of them, anyway, voted against the agreement, as it did not include ongoing enhanced tax breaks for those who purchase health insurance via the Affordable Care Act.

The seven Democrats and one independent who voted to end the shutdown on a temporary basis argued that their constituents, as well as citizens across the nation, had suffered enough. Plus, the deal does require a separate specific vote in December on ACA (“Obamacare”) benefits, which changes the politics of the issue dramatically.

Unlike Munich in 1938, both Democratic decisions – to vote for or against the proposal – are defensible positions. So, if you had a seat in the U.S. Senate, how would you have voted? And now that our senators have voted, what will you do?

A government shutdown is a weapon

In pondering your response, remember that government shutdowns are a growing hazard in governing. And understand this shutdown added a dark new element to the debate.

Fights over what and which programs will be funded have existed throughout our history. But just plain “shutting down” the government has been employed as a political weapon just since the 1990s.

A shutdown, frankly, is a misnomer. After all, the courts haven’t closed, our military and police forces are still operating, air traffic controllers (unpaid, of course) are still doing their best to keep the skies safe, masked-badgeless immigration agents are still snatching folks, the president still plants his butt behind the C&O desk (the Resolute Desk, reports suggest, may have been relocated to Mar-a-Lago), Congress is (or should be) in session.

No, only so-called nonessential services such as food assistance are suspended.

Cruelty was a feature in this shutdown, not a bug

Understand as well: Shutdowns are solely a political decision ‒ a strategic and tactical weapon used by one party, one branch or one individual ‒ to force wanted actions.

In this shutdown, both parties charged the other with causing the 40-plus day closure. Republicans pointed to Democrats’ demand that the ACA tax credits be extended; Democrats claim Republicans were simply appeasing President Donald Trump’s mercurial administration.

But health care was not the essential issue in this shutdown. Cruelty was.

Cruelty as national policy is the essential issue in this shutdown. Well, cruelty and cowardice. That is the dark new fact in what we endured in this shutdown: Cruelty toward its own citizens as acceptable U.S. policy.

The compromise on ending the shutdown, because it was a compromise, was a small but potentially significant victory.

Victory for what? Well, potentially, hopefully, for basic decency and courage. To ensure a complete victory, however, we now must take the initiative and make the citizens’ voice overwhelmingly clear and powerful.

Budget deficits are as American as apple pie

Don’t somehow mistake this shutdown, or for that matter any shutdown, as a ploy for good fiscal practices and policy. Government fiscal policies have been a mess since the Declaration of Independence was signed.

In the past 50 years, we have had balanced budgets maybe a handful of times.

The last two times we had balanced budgets were under Democratic presidents: Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton.

In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan argued the budget deficit of $59 billion was a disgrace. In the 1981-82 fiscal year, under then-President Reagan and U.S. Rep. David Stockman, who was formulating Reagan’s budget strategy, the deficit had shot to nearly $111 billion. (Just for giggles, the budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30 was, take a deep breath, $1.8 trillion. And that was a decrease from the previous year!)

And a national debt? We came howling into this world with a national debt, and we have only gone without a national debt once, during the administration of President Andrew Jackson. He wiped out the national bank, made a profit doing so and retired the then-national debt.

After Clinton balanced the budget, Vice President Al Gore, in his run for president, promised to balance the budget every year – unless there was a crisis, which, of course, happened on Sept. 11, 2001, after Gore had lost the election.

Yes, with a current national debt of greater than $38 trillion, and budget deficits approaching $2 trillion, even this center-left individual argues we must bring our finances under control, with both targeted spending cuts and increased revenue. That’s what businesses and families, state and local governments do. Our national mission requires the federal government to do the same.

It's not the economy, stupid

Again, good fiscal policy was not the cause for this shutdown. That would be the structure and basic purpose of government.

Which is why, again, we must now take the initiative to assert how we believe that Congress, and with frustrated hope, the president, must act.

Since Trump reclaimed the Oval Office on Jan. 20, his goals have focused around vengeance and cruelty. How else can you honestly describe them? The dictates of Project 2025 are to essentially wipe out all but a few government services, shifting them to corporate interests. In other words, Trump is targeting the policies he views as favored by his opponents.

Trump is actually killing people – by bombing boats of alleged drug runners – without evidence of their alleged wrongdoing. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, with their masked junior-league Gestapo tactics, have arrested more than 170 U.S. citizens, according to ProPublica, along with thousands of undocumented immigrants. His One Big Butt-ugly Bill is cutting critical programs such as Head Start.

And he is willing to allow ruinous increases in health insurance prices to lower-income individuals and families who rely on Obamacare. That will assuredly cost lives. Sorry, it will.

If we drive premium prices above what people can afford (and we’re talking about people who otherwise don’t qualify for Medicaid) some folks with some chronic health conditions will not get treatment, and die. Count on it.

Trump is also wiling to let people, essentially, go hungry. Hence shutting off Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits during the shutdown, the first time in SNAP's 60-year history.

Trump’s policies are not conservative policies. They are cruel policies.

A short list of our demands

So, the compromise reached to end the shutdown was a small victory. If Democrats had succeeded in blocking it, would they have gotten more? Maybe. Which is why, unlike Munich, when the only acceptable answer to Hitler should have been, “No, you can’t have Czechoslovakia, we will go to war,” both opposing the proposal and supporting it are defensible positions.

The issue now is not to waste time arguing over what Democrats, or Republicans, should have done. As former U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow said in her interview with Detroit Free Press Editorial Page Editor Nancy Kaffer, the focus now has to be on insisting congressional Republicans hold to their word to vote on health insurance in December, and to push them to finally come to some agreement on a workable health insurance plan for the United States.

In all this, remember that not once in decades have national Republicans come forward with an actual proposal on health insurance. Obamacare is not perfect, but solving it does not mean scrapping it and then wait for inspiration from on high.

Put a proposal on the table. Whether you are Republican, Democrat or independent, all of us must demand that discussion and action on a health care proposal immediately get underway. Practically, that means a one-year extension on the Obamacare tax credits should continue while serious, goal-driven discussions begin.

Back where we started: What will you do?

So, we know what they did. And we know what Trump and his Project 2025 backers are doing.

What will you do?

Call or write your congressional representatives, and start demanding they adhere to the December vote and begin work on a health care proposal. Call or write them constantly.

It’s up to we the people now.

John Lindstrom has covered Michigan politics for 50 years and is a contributing columnist at the Detroit Free Press, where this column originally appeared.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Democrats who voted to end the shutdown had defensible reasons | Opinion

Reporting by John Lindstrom / Detroit Free Press

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