Maryland Representative Johnny Olszewski said Monday that if the current plan in the United States Senate to end the government shutdown is voted on in the House of Representatives, he will oppose it.
Olszewski, whose district includes most of Baltimore County, said the proposal does nothing for Americans who are being crushed by the cost of health care.
“The deal is a non-starter for this Democrat in the House of Representatives,” Olszewski said.
Olszewski and other Democrats have said for weeks that for them to vote to end the shutdown, subsidies had to be extended for people who get their health care through the Affordable Care Act.
That is not in the Senate plan.
Despite that, Olszewski said he does not think that’s a defeat for Democrats, because they are raising the issue.
Olszewski said, “We saw an overwhelming movement towards the Democratic Party in the elections last Tuesday, I think because people are not supportive of the extreme actions they are seeing from this administration and from his enablers in Congress.”
Olszewski said another issue he has with the Senate plan to end the shutdown is that it does nothing to keep the Trump administration from unilaterally cutting the budget in the future. He said he plans to offer an amendment in the House that would block the Trump administration from doing that.
“After we have a bipartisan deal, if we shake hands and agree this is the budget, these are the levels of funding, that should stick,” Olszewski said.
Olszewski’s fellow Democrat in the House, Kweisi Mfume, who represents most of Baltimore City, opposes the shutdown deal as well.
Mfume said in a statement, “Any agreement to go forward without addressing skyrocketing health care premiums and the high cost of groceries and home electricity is no deal at all.”
A spokeswoman for Andy Harris, Maryland’s lone Republican Congressman, says he has indicated likely support for the plan, but is still reviewing it.
Both of Maryland’s Democratic U.S. Senators, Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, oppose the Senate shutdown plan.
Van Hollen said in a statement, “Not only does it fail to address the pending explosion in working Americans’ health insurance costs, it also lacks the necessary guardrails to stop President Trump from ignoring the law and withholding funds for important priorities.”
