By Greg Sukiennik, The Berkshire Eagle
In a battle of wills pitting Democrats against congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal says he won’t blink first.
In an interview with The Eagle, Neal, D-Springfield, said he’s confident Democrats, having refused to approve spending bills unless Republicans restore tax credits for Affordable Care Act health insurance plans, will prevail in the resulting government shutdown.
Speaking the day before a second round of “No Kings” protests was expected to bring thousands of Americans into the streets against the Trump administration’s policies, Neal said congressional Republicans are “terrified” to do anything Trump doesn’t like or want.
The following is our interview with Rep. Neal, conducted by phone on Friday. It has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
THE EAGLE: As of this writing on Friday, the government shutdown is in its 16th day. Do you have any indication when an agreement will be reached?
NEAL: I don’t. I anticipate that once Trump orders Republicans to negotiate, that’ll be the next significant step.
THE EAGLE: It’s that direct?
Neal: I think it’s pretty clear that the Republicans have abandoned all of their constitutional responsibilities and obligations, and they’ve ceded all that power to Trump, and now the result is theirs.
THE EAGLE: What does fighting for these ACA tax credits mean to the Mass. 1st Congressional District? What can you tell me about specific stories your office has heard from folks who are concerned about whether they can afford health insurance if this isn’t addressed?
NEAL: Well, clearly the premium support notices are now going out. And remember that the ACA in Massachusetts … is for people who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid. So all of a sudden, if you’re getting a premium increase that’s proposed to be 25 or 30 percent, you are going to be pretty upset for good reason. And what we’re suggesting is that the basis of the ACA was to provide universal accessibility. And we don’t want people who feel that their premiums are going up to drop out of the system, because the system works on the basis of spreading risk and the mandate.
THE EAGLE: Do you have any specific stories from constituents who may have called your office?
NEAL: We’re hearing some now, but I think it’s going to be amplified in the next few days, if not the next couple of weeks, because the notices will likely be in the mail.
THE EAGLE: What are you hearing from constituents and federal employees in the district about how they’re being affected by the shutdown?
NEAL: If you’re trying to have [a question] answered [about] Social Security, the Internal Revenue Service, Medicare? Right now, they have shut down those offices even from congressional inquiry. And as you know, constituent work is the lifeblood of a congressional office. So if you have an issue, for example, with the Internal Revenue Service — a payment plan or questions — you’re not even able to get through, and your congressional office is not able to get an adequate answer.
THE EAGLE: Along those lines, how concerned should we be, and how concerned are you, about layoffs and targeted cuts to programs benefiting or seen as benefiting blue states that have been made since the shutdown began?
NEAL: Well, judges are clearly pushing back on these positions that Trump has taken. And I’m reminding my Republican colleagues that someday there will be a Democratic president. Do they really want to continue going down this path? And they have abandoned and advocated their congressional responsibilities because they live in terror of Donald Trump.
THE EAGLE: One of the things about this that has gotten missed is sure, Massachusetts is a very blue state, but Massachusetts also has Republican voters who voted for Donald Trump.
NEAL: Well, there’s no better example of what you’ve just said then what happened to that tunnel from New York to New Jersey that Trump said he’s canceling — “terminating” it, that was his answer. But you know that also is going to impact that gubernatorial race in New Jersey, because there are not going to be just Democrats that were going to drive through that tunnel. It’s going to be Republicans and independents [who] drive through there too.
[On Wednesday, Trump, speaking about ending federally funded initiatives supported by Democrats, said his administration had “terminated” the proposed $16 billion Gateway commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River, adding a new link between New York and New Jersey. On Thursday, Politico, citing a Trump Administration source, reported the project is still alive. But the site also reported that White House spokesperson Kush Desai said “These projects are not going through, and that is a fact.”]
THE EAGLE: You’ve seen the Healey administration’s assessment about what cuts that have already been made are going to cost the state.
NEAL: [The state congressional delegation] did a call with her [Thursday]. The governor set it with me, she had all of the delegation on, and she was laying out the financial peril that these proposals will immediately impact the commonwealth. And as she positioned it … the immediacy of it is about $3.9 billion. She said what it does is it just causes a lot of uncertainty, and that these investments from the federal government, including for nutrition programs … she’s going to try as best she can to support them, but that these are very, very real cuts.
THE EAGLE: Is there any hope that any of the damage can be repaired?
NEAL: My sense is that once the government reopens, then unnecessarily, we’re going to have to figure out how to go back and compensate the states for what they’re about to do. I mean, that’s the irony of it. Even with the Affordable Care Act, it polls in the high 50s now with the American people, blue and red states. And I think that the support programs, the nutrition programs, the health care programs — those are not just blue state initiatives. Those are plans that Republican states and Republican governors have come to rely on.
THE EAGLE: What’s your level of confidence that this shutdown is going to achieve its goals, and what do you base that confidence upon?
NEAL: If you look at the generic polling that we saw on Tuesday night, right Democrats were up by 11 points in the sense that the public blames Republicans by an 11 point differential for the shutdown.
THE EAGLE: Which poll is that?
NEAL: There were 11 of them that were combined, and we just took the polling average. … And I don’t know where Real Clear Politics comes down on this, but I usually, I tend to pay attention to them only because they average out polls right. And [Democrats] are up by 16 as it relates to health care.
THE EAGLE: The AP-NORC poll shows 58 percent blame the president or congressional Republicans for the shutdown and 54 percent blame Democrats. But the administration — which increasingly frames Democrats as an enemy — is blaming your party for the shutdown on government websites and at airports. Are you concerned that a majority of Americans will eventually come to believe that narrative?
NEAL: No, I don’t. I mean, I think Trump makes it up from hour to hour. He puts out false numbers. Everybody knows that. And remember that his suggestion to the health care woes of the country was that people should have taken a sip of bleach during the pandemic.
THE EAGLE: That same poll also shows that roughly four in 10 US adults support extending the tax credits. One in 10 oppose them outright, and 42 percent have no opinion, which suggests many Americans aren’t closely following this. What’s your own experience in the 1st District on awareness?
NEAL: What that means is they may have private insurance on their own.
THE EAGLE: How do you communicate the importance of this to people who’ve tuned this out?
NEAL: This is about your health care plan. And remember that eventually, even with some of these premium supports, eventually everybody pays more if we don’t use these tax credits.
THE EAGLE: Are you at all concerned this, this shutdown, could backfire in ways that really damage the district, the party, the country?
NEAL: Well, you always have to be concerned about it. I think part of it is the vindictiveness of the president. I’ve not seen anything like this, where he selects who gets prosecuted, where he selects congressional spending which has been appropriated and authorized. He just decides what he has to spend the money on. And again, I think that the problem there is that Republicans have ceded their constitutional authority to the president. They will come to regret that, believe me.
THE EAGLE: Would you vote to end this shutdown without achieving the stated goals, and what would lead you to do that?
NEAL: No, no, no. We think we have a very responsible goal here.
THE EAGLE: Would you be willing to accept “reopen the government and then we’ll talk about ACA tax credits next year?”
NEAL: I’m not going to vote for a one-year extension. They’ll wait until after next election in the midterms, and they’ll go back to doing the same thing they’re doing now. No, I’m not going to do that.
