Hochul blasts GOP over government shutdown, funding cuts

On the heels of several unexpected federal funding cuts to New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul and a number of other elected officials gathered to denounce Republicans over the federal government shutdown that began at midnight. 

In a lower Manhattan park with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop, Hochul laid the blame for the second government shutdown under President Donald Trump squarely on the GOP. “This shutdown is a choice, a deliberate decision by Donald Trump and the Republicans to abandon the very people they were sent to Washington to represent,” she said. “And they alone are responsible for this.” The governor highlighted the over 100,000 federal workers in the state – including those who maintain the Statue of Liberty – who have been furloughed as a result of the shutdown, as well as threats to federal food assistance like SNAP and WIC.

The issue leading to the shutdown revolves around health care funding. Democrats sought to permanently extend enhanced health insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire in December and to restore $1 trillion in Medicaid spending that was cut as part of Trump’s spending bill in July. Both the ACA subsidies and the restored Medicaid funding would in part benefit immigrants with legal status. The GOP has falsely claimed that Democrats’ proposal would fund health care for undocumented immigrants. 

Republicans instead passed a “clean” continuing resolution in the House that simply kept the government running for seven more weeks without any changes to spending levels. All but one Democrat voted against the measure in the House. It failed in the U.S. Senate after all but three Democrats voted against it, and one Republican voted against it, preventing it from reaching the key 60-vote threshold needed to pass the chamber without being filibustered.

Republicans have blamed Democrats for the shutdown, dubbing it the “Schumer shutdown” after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The White House has even created an online government shutdown clock on an official government web page that bluntly states: “Democrats have shut down the government.”

Hochul on Wednesday pointed out that Republicans control the presidency and both chambers of Congress. “They hold all the levers of power,” the governor said. She further criticized Trump because he “bragged that during a shutdown, his administration could do things that are irreversible” like slashing the federal workforce and cutting key programs.

Hochul pointed to work Democrats have done in the state recently to address affordability as a contrast to Republican actions in Washington D.C., which liberals say benefit the wealthy at the expense of the working class. “We have inflation (rebate) checks, thank God, arriving this month and next, we expanded the Child Tax Credit, free school meals … and expanding tax cuts for working people,” the governor said. 

Mario Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, spoke about increased unemployment benefits that go into effect this month thanks to the state paying off $7 billion in debt the program had as part of the state budget this year. “What our leaders have done by raising that benefit that goes into effect today – today! – is … giving (people) peace of mind throughout all this chaos that has been caused by every single Republican in Washington,” he said at the Manhattan press conference. “To say, ‘Here in New York, we're going to take care of you.’” The maximum benefit will increase by 70%, from $504 per week to $869 per week.

Separate from the effects of the federal government shutdown, the Trump administration has cut billions in federal grant dollars over the past few days, in part because it objected to New York’s sanctuary laws and DEI policies. At the press conference, state Attorney General Letitia James announced that her office filed an emergency lawsuit last night over $33 million in grant money that she said the Department of Homeland Security suddenly cut from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that was meant for counterterrorism efforts. “I can think of no other state that is facing the risk than New York,” she said. “Why did they zero it out? They zeroed it out because they allege that we're a sanctuary city.”

At the tail end of the press conference, Hochul announced that even more cuts had happened while officials were speaking. Through a social media post, the Trump administration announced the Department of Transportation is freezing $18 billion in infrastructure funds meant for the Gateway Project and the Second Avenue Subway. The administration said the freeze is over “unconstitutional DEI principles,” including standard requirements that a certain percentage of contracts on the projects go to women- and minority-owned businesses. “We can't make this up, folks,” Hochul said. “This keeps getting worse and worse.”

That all comes on top of an additional $187 million in expected cuts from DHS to state and local law enforcement agencies for counterterrorism initiatives, which James and other Democratic state attorneys general sued over on Monday. A Rhode Island federal judge on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order to prevent the Trump administration from immediately cutting those funds.