By James Williams

The 2025 government shutdown revealed more than partisan dysfunction — it exposed a moral and strategic divide inside Washington. On one side are lawmakers using the shutdown as leverage to defend healthcare and social programs; on the other, those determined to use it to rein in what they call ideological excess.

Two senators embodied that tension: Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Chris Coons of Delaware. In an October 6 CNN interview, Sanders warned that reopening the government too soon would cost Democrats their negotiating leverage. Weeks later, Coons told C-SPAN that while the tactic was “a very unpleasant tool,” it was one of the few remaining ways to defend core programs such as Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

Their positions captured Washington’s defining paradox: moral discomfort paired with strategic necessity. Now another Democrat, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, has added a rare dose of honesty to the conversation — shifting the spotlight to how both parties created this budget impasse in the first place.

When Fetterman said, “This was designed by the Democratic Party to expire at the end of the year. Let’s have a conversation to extend it and not shut our government down,” he broke the unspoken rule of Washington: never admit your own party helped design a crisis. He wasn’t defending Republicans or turning on Democrats. He was acknowledging reality — that both parties played a part in creating the showdown now threatening the federal budget. At the center of it all are the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, the expanded subsidies that helped millions of Americans afford coverage during and after the pandemic.

The enhanced ACA subsidies originated with the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and were extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act. From the beginning, they were temporary, scheduled to end unless Congress acted again — exactly what Fetterman meant when he said they were “designed to expire.” Now Democrats want to make those credits permanent, arguing that millions will see premium spikes without them. Republicans counter that the subsidies cost too much and must be offset by spending cuts. And once again, the government’s funding hangs in the balance.

In Washington, perception beats policy. Democrats frame the fight as protecting working families’ healthcare. Republicans frame it as stopping reckless spending. But Fetterman’s remark cuts through the noise: the Democrats built a temporary benefit and Republicans are letting it lapse — meaning both sides share responsibility. Fetterman still supports the tax credits but rejects using a shutdown as ransom to save them. His pragmatism echoes Coons’s discomfort with weaponizing the shutdown and Sanders’s insistence that leverage matters only if used to achieve real results.

Recent Democratic talking points warn that ending the enhanced subsidies would double insurance premiums for millions. Yet verified data from JustFactsDaily.com paints a more nuanced picture: The enhanced Obamacare subsidies were enacted by Democrats as a temporary COVID-era measure. The Big Beautiful Bill has no direct impact on them. The average ACA recipient currently pays $74 per month for coverage. If subsidies expire, the average rises to $159 per month — still below the Medicare Part B premium of $185 per month. Enhanced subsidies currently provide roughly $14,680 per year to some 60-year-old couples earning $125,000. U.S. taxpayers already fund about $2.6 trillion annually in government healthcare programs — roughly $19,000 per household. In short, Democrats aren’t truly “lowering” costs — they’re shifting them to taxpayers. The policy works, but the math demands honesty.
(Source: JustFactsDaily.com / JustFacts.com, a nonpartisan data resource.)

The domestic struggle mirrors an international one. Overseas, USAID and the State Department have increasingly funded social-equity projects alongside traditional development work — from gender-inclusion efforts to LGBTQ-rights initiatives. Examples include $3.3 million for the “Being LGBTQ in the Caribbean” program, $1.5 million in Serbia for workplace-diversity reforms, small cultural-diplomacy grants ($25,000–$80,000) for a transgender opera in Colombia and a comic-book project in Peru, and the $200 million Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund promoting women’s empowerment. Supporters call these moral investments; critics label them ideological exports. The former president said his administration used the shutdown to close programs tied to Democratic priorities — highlighting just how partisan U.S. foreign aid has become.

Food aid, once the least controversial part of foreign spending, is now central to Washington’s leverage game. When the foreign-aid freeze began, only emergency food and medicine were exempt — giving negotiators control over a moral lifeline no one wants to cut. A February 2025 Reuters report confirmed that U.S. food purchases for overseas relief were paused despite waivers. Aid groups warned that humanitarian help was being wielded as a bargaining tool. Food assistance — long America’s most admired export — has become symbolic of how compassion itself can be politicized.

Sanders brought the urgency. Coons brought the conscience. Fetterman brought the candor. Together, they illustrate Washington’s new reality: leverage is both the weapon and the wound. It protects priorities, but it also deepens polarization. Every shutdown, every extension, every expiring policy reflects the same question — are lawmakers governing, or just gaming the system?

When foreign aid becomes ideological, food aid becomes a bargaining chip, and healthcare becomes a hostage, America’s fights are no longer about budgets — they’re about belief. In 2025, Sanders warned not to surrender leverage. Coons confessed that using it felt wrong. Fetterman reminded everyone that the crisis itself was man-made. Maybe the real shutdown isn’t of government at all. Maybe it’s of honesty — the one resource Washington still can’t balance.