Who cares about Americans during the shutdown

The federal government is locked an expensive, wasteful, destructive shutdown due to Republican leaders' and President Trump's refusal to negotiate with Democrats who are trying to protect the nearly 25 million Americans who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. At the end of 2025, because of the giant tax cut and spending bill passed by the Republicans, the subsidies millions of Americans depend on to make their healthcare affordable will be eliminated. Democrats know that these drastic cuts will mean that many Americans will lose their health insurance, health insurance premiums will go up as the healthiest people decide to take their chances rather than buy insurance they can't afford, and clinics and hospitals will be hit hard with less revenue coming in at the same time that uncompensated emergency care will go up. This will be particularly devastating to rural and small-town clinics and hospitals that are bracing for Medicaid cuts that are coming at the end of 2026 (conveniently for Republicans, after the next Congressional elections).

What's more, if you look at what will be funded as "essential" during the shutdown—a determination made by the president's administration—you'll see who and what President Trump cares about. He apparently cares more about Argentinians than Americans, as his $20 billion bailout to prop up the Argentine economy damaged by unpopular President Milei, a Trump ally, is still going out the door during the shutdown. He also cares more about his new White House ballroom than about the infrastructure needs of states—work on destroying the East Wing of the historic White House and replacing it with that gawdy showpiece continues apace during the shutdown. And somehow the Department of Homeland Security was able to finagle $200 million from the Coast Guard for two luxury private jets for Kristi Noem.

Not so lucky are Americans. The president's Office of Management and Budget has halted $28 billion in already-approved funding for infrastructure projects, with the vast majority of cuts targeting Democrat-led cities and states including Minnesota. Furthermore, the SNAP benefits that millions of struggling families rely on to supplement their food budget in these inflationary times are being withheld, and Minnesota is one of the states sounding the alarm that these benefits may not be available if the shutdown continues.

President Trump is exploiting this shutdown to do even more damage to the federal government, threatening to fire instead of furlough thousands of federal employees—no doubt including many of the 18,000+ federal employees who live and work in Minnesota.

To stop the chaos, please contact the White House and your Congressional representatives and tell them to do their job: Congress needs to end its weeks-long vacation Speaker Mike Johnson is using to prevent any negotiation on ending the shutdown.

Teresa Alto

Grand Rapids, MN