| One horrible day down, how many more to go? That seems to be the question on everyone’s mind. Unless Congress has a sudden epiphany, the coming days (and weeks, perhaps) will get a bit repetitive. If I had to guess, half the newsletters in your inbox are about the shutdown and the other half are about Jane Goodall, who was a tireless steward of this planet. It’s impossible to ignore the irony that she passed on the same day the government shut down a bunch of climate disaster preparedness and environmental programs, but I digress. If the shutdown continues, you’ll soon be tired of hearing about Washington’s ineptitude. So let’s make two things abundantly clear before that happens: - The personal cost of this shutdown is huge. If Affordable Care Act premium subsidies are allowed to lapse, Lisa Jarvis says more than four million Americans could lose health insurance, while others would face significantly higher costs. That’s not something voters will easily forget.
- The political cost is even bigger. Ronald Brownstein says Democrats see this as their “best chance this year to galvanize public attention.” Health care may be their hook, but the Trump administration is threatening to fire federal workers and erase constitutional safeguards, too. Democracy is on the line.
Given the gravity of the situation, it makes sense that a lot of bars near the Hill are offering shutdown specials. Everyone needs a breather. Butterworth’s, one of MAGA’s favorite watering holes, has $10 “furlough-ritas” and “continuing rye-solutions” on the menu. Union Pub has a $7 hot dog-and-beer combo. And at Merry Pin, federal workers are free to “craft away” their stress. I’m not in DC, so I can’t drown my sorrows at an unhappy hour, but New York City just so happens to have a zillion concerts tonight, so plenty of people will be staying up past their bedtime to see their favorite artist perform live. I swear, the only person who could make the lineup more stacked is Bad Bunny. Too bad he’s just doing one show in the US — you can read about his Super Bowl debut in Adam Minter’s latest. If concerts and bar crawls aren’t your thing, you could always take your mind off politics by going to the theater. Allison Schrager says Broadway could really use the business: “The expense of putting on a big musical has increased in the last few years, with rising inflation and labor costs, even as ticket prices have remained flat or even fallen, relative to inflation. Yet attendance is still down compared to before the pandemic and many theaters are not filling up,” she writes. Her solution? Producers need to take more risks. By next year, who knows. Maybe they’ll give out a Tony for a hit musical about the government shutdown. Crazier things have been done. Bonus DC Reading: The shutdown is yet another gut punch to America’s chronically underfunded government statistics bureaus. — Jonathan Levin The Devil Is in the Details | It’s been 48 hours since Trump unveiled his 20-point peace plan for Gaza, and Marc Champion has come to the conclusion that it actually has potential. “But if this proposal is no longer silly, it is not yet serious,” he notes. It remains too short on critical details and, to qualify, would need more than the three or four days he has offered for negotiations,” he writes. In total, the plan is just shy of 1,200 words — a third of the length of a Matt Levine newsletter (on a brief day). Marc says that brevity is bad news for Gaza: “Timing, sequencing and guarantees are always critical to the kinds of deals that successfully persuade warring parties to lay down their arms. In these areas, the published text is woefully vague. Too much has to be taken on trust, in an environment where there is none,” he writes. Notably absent from the agreement is any mention of Israel’s neighbors. In order for the deal to work, Marc says Trump will need the buy-in of Middle Eastern powers — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In its current form, Marc says the proposal could be weaponized to extend a war that few people, save for Hamas and a handful of extremist Israelis, wish to continue. Read the whole thing. |
