Senator John Kennedy cut through the Washington fog on Friday with the kind of plainspoken fury Americans are tired of not hearing from the establishment. After Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer floated a deal to reopen the government only if Republicans extended COVID-era Obamacare subsidies for another year, Kennedy blasted the proposal as the “dumbest thing possible” and told Schumer, “Earth to Chuck,” making it crystal clear he would not play along with political theater.
Schumer’s offer — a one-year extension of enhanced ACA tax credits that would cost roughly $35 billion — frames the Democrats as more interested in propping up insurance companies than solving the real problem of skyrocketing premiums. Kennedy rightly pointed out that handing $35 billion to insurers without any commitment to lower costs simply rewards the status quo and doubles down on the same failed policies that have driven Americans to despair.
The senator’s reaction was equal parts humor and fury: “God, please give me patience, because if you give me strength, I’m going to need bail money,” he told Fox News, and then tore into the substance — or lack of substance — behind the Democrats’ demand. Kennedy’s line that “stupid should hurt more” isn’t just a zinger, it’s a profile of a party that prefers political wins for special interests over real relief for working families.
Republican leaders in the Senate echoed Kennedy’s dismissal, calling Schumer’s plan a non-starter and stressing that reopening the government first is the sensible starting point for any healthcare talks. The fact that Democrats have repeatedly blocked clean continuing resolutions while insisting on policy riders tells you everything about their priorities: political leverage over governance. Kennedy even floated a simple, savage remedy for the cowardice in Congress — cut pay until politicians grow a spine — and that kind of blunt accountability is exactly what voters deserve.
Meanwhile, real Americans are paying the price for this Washington stall. The shutdown has stretched into the longest in modern U.S. history, snarling airports, straining TSA and air traffic control and leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed or working without pay. If Democrats think staging a hostage situation over health-care gimmicks is a winning political strategy, they are badly misreading the mood of the country.
Here’s the bottom line for hardworking Americans: loyalty to special interests and to the policy status quo is not leadership. Kennedy’s excoriation of Schumer should be a wake-up call — conservatives must keep demanding principled, common-sense solutions that actually lower costs and restore accountability. Washington’s game-playing has consequences, and it’s time the people who caused this mess be made to feel the pain until they choose the country over their cronies.
