Speaker Mike Johnson "won" the government shutdown — but the road ahead remains rocky

WASHINGTON — Few could credibly dispute that House Speaker Mike Johnson came out of the 43-day federal government shutdown last week as one of the strongest Republican House leaders in years.

Johnson's strategy: Democrats would capitulate if Republicans refused to negotiate on their key point — extending tax credits that help more than 20 million Americans, 293,000 of whom live in Louisiana pay for health insurance — until the government reopened.

It worked.

"Republicans stood together and faced down the Democrats. The whole thing was foolish and utterly pointless," Johnson said Friday on Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria." "This is not your father's Democrat Party. They're Marxists now."

Whether Republicans or Democrats "won" the shutdown is the subject of great debate.

Poll after poll blamed both parties, with slightly more viewing Republicans as more at fault for the shutdown. Even President Donald Trump said the Democratic showings in the Nov. 4 elections were an expression of frustration.

Democrats came out of the shutdown even more suspicious of the Republican majority's "my way or the highway" approach, as described by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

The shutdown was precipitated by Democratic insistence that Republicans negotiate, where they haven't before, on health care and other issues. Democrats withheld their votes in the Senate for the House-passed resolution authorizing the government to continue funding government services after Oct. 1.

With Republican majorities holding all three branches of government and the refusal of GOP leadership to meaningfully negotiate, Democrats felt their only leverage was to withhold their votes until both sides sat down at the table to talk about extending the pandemic-era tax credits for expensive health care policies bought by working Americans and small businesses.

Six Senate Democrats capitulated, and the resolution to reopen government passed Wednesday night.

Republican leaders say they're open to reworking the ACA credits now that government reopened. But the subsidies, which cover the gap between policy prices and what beneficiaries can afford, expire Dec. 31.

"These credits have been a lifeline for countless Louisiana families, helping them afford coverage in a time when the cost of living continues to climb. Without this extension, families will see their premiums skyrocket," said U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, the New Orleans Democrat who opposed the legislation ending the shutdown.

While Johnson gloats that Democrats folded, his path forward is littered with landmines — not the least of which is how to handle the Affordable Care Act.

House rank and file from both parties will likely force a vote this week to require the Trump administration to release the files of the late financier and convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein in hopes of determining whether high-ranking officials were involved in his crimes. If successful, the resolution moves to the Senate, and if passed there, to the president, who has dodged the requests.

Johnson contends the GOP-dominated House Oversight committee is already releasing the files after they have been vetted.

Beyond health care and Epstein, Congress faces sticky political issues that could test Johnson and his number two, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson.

Some lawmakers, including Carter, are looking to decouple renewal of flood insurance policies from the appropriations schedule. The National Flood Insurance Program, during the shutdown, was unable to sell flood insurance on which more than 400,000 Louisiana home and business owners rely.

A new study by HomeAbroad Inc., a mortgage investment firm in Buffalo, New York, calculated that the pause in flood insurance possibly delayed 126,000 home closings nationwide — about 328 in St. Tammany Parish, and 257 in East Baton Rouge.

Also awaiting action is legislation to revamp FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Scalise said the real negotiation is going to be the individual appropriations bills that fund the government.

As part of the deal to end the government shutdown, Congress agreed to fund a few of the programs — military construction and food stamps, to name two — for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, 2026. But the bulk of the bills that authorize spending for federal programs need to find agreement before Jan. 30, 2026, or the government will again shut down.

Relationships remain tense as Congress tackles government funding.

"Next week, House Republicans will hit the ground running, passing legislation that builds on our work to lower energy prices, secure American communities, defend American values, and denounce the hollow promises of socialism, and we will be adding Friday votes to help us start making up for the time the government was shut down," Scalise said.