WASHINGTON (RNS) — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other Democrats joined faith leaders on Thursday (Oct. 30) to pray and speak against the dangers of health care cuts and allowing government assistance programs to expire during the ongoing government shutdown.
“We will not retreat, and we will use every nonviolent tool at our disposal to call this nation, this Congress, to stop all of this partisan fighting and get down to the business of the people,” said the Rev. William Barber II, a prominent social justice activist, at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “Open this government so that you can open up good news for the poor.”
Barber was echoed by Jeffries, who accused Republicans of committing “policy violence” by cutting Medicaid spending earlier this year with the passage of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” — which Barber vigorously protested, resulting in his arrest at the U.S. Capitol in April.
Jeffries then pivoted to an issue Democrats argue is at the center of the nearly monthlong government shutdown — a dispute over whether to extend health insurance subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.
“The refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax rates, the unwillingness to find a dime to meet the health care needs of the American people, when some folks can find $40 billion to bail out a right-wing dictator in Argentina — that’s policy violence,” Jeffr …