Boiling down the shutdown.

President Donald Trump displays the signed the funding bill to reopen the government, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The government shutdown is over. For six weeks Senate Democrats held the taxpayers of the United States hostage as they attempted – in vain – to force the Republicans to help fix a problem that the Democrats created.

When you render the government shutdown to its essence, you clearly see that for six weeks routine government services were unavailable to the citizens who pay for them through the taxes that never stopped coming out of their paychecks, government employees worked without paychecks, countless thousands suffered travel delays and the greatest nation on the planet looked stuck on stupid – all because of a bad law that passed  Congress 15 years ago without a single Republican vote.

The sticking point that kept Democrats from voting for a continuing resolution to fund the government – a resolution based on prior spending resolutions going back to when Joe Biden was president and Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and for which Democrats had previously voted – was the fact that Obamacare, formally (and mockingly) known as the Affordable Care Act , isn’t affordable at all.

Democrats were holding out for a continuation of COVID-era subsidies – ostensibly put in place to help those put out of work by the pandemic afford their premiums – that are in reality papering over the fact that Obamacare is a colossal failure.

Obamacare has not kept any of its promises. Not one. (The last big federal program to keep its promises was the Apollo lunar program that ended in 1972.)

We were told that the average American family would save $2,500 per year on health insurance premiums. Premiums instead have tripled. We were told that if we liked our plan, we could keep our plan. Didn’t happen. We were told that every American would be freed from the awful possibility of facing bankruptcy because of a catastrophic illness or injury. Such bankruptcies are filed in federal courts every single day.

Millions of Americans now can’t help noticing that the “Affordable” Care Act has made the insurance that pays for that care conspicuously unaffordable.

The Obamacare subsidies that attempt to conceal this fact are set to expire December 31. That is a date of the Democrats’ choosing because not a single Republican voted for the COVID-era American Rescue Plan that put those subsidies in place.

There are two takeaways here. First, we again learn that whenever a grand federal program is concocted to address a problem, that problem will likely get (much) worse. And second, there is no such thing as a temporary government handout. Once such a program starts, it becomes permanent.

Which leads to the third takeaway. Countless independent and swing voters that put Republicans over the top in 2024 are dependent on these very Obamacare subsidies. Their votes will be needed in 2026 if the GOP is to keep the House from flipping to the Democrats.

So, Republicans will eventually cave on extending the subsidies. Don’t doubt me.

Are you in any way mystified then as to why the United States is $37 trillion in debt?