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President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama are polar opposites in some ways, however, as anybody who has sat behind the Resolute Desk, they do share some similarities.
One factor each have in widespread is overseeing authorities shutdowns — one below Obama and two below Trump. And even in that sparse similarity, each males operated in a different way, significantly in the latest, 43-day closure.
Whereas each congressional battles have been centered on Obamacare, Obama put his shutdown on the focus, whereas Trump saved it at extra of an arm’s size.
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President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama dealt with their respective shutdowns in a different way, although healthcare proved to be a typical thread in each. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Photos; Debra L Rothenberg/WireImage)
Romina Boccia, director of finances and entitlement coverage on the CATO Institute, instructed Fox Information Digital {that a} main distinction within the Obama and Trump administration’s approaches to their respective shutdowns was that in 2013, Obama needed the ache of shutdown to be felt by People, whereas Trump saved the main target centered on Washington, D.C.
“In the course of the Obama shutdown, it was extra to make it extraordinarily seen, shut down beloved capabilities — even when you did not have to — that have an effect on common People,” she mentioned.
Boccia on the time labored for the conservative think-tank the Heritage Basis on the time and recalled the barricades that have been swiftly erected round Washington, D.C.’s many nationwide parks.
These barricades, each concrete and human, spilled out past the nation’s capital and have been positioned across the a whole lot of nationwide parks throughout America as a stark reminder that the federal government was closed.
Boccia famous {that a} direct comparability of the 2 shutdowns can be troublesome given the differing lengths, however that the Trump administration, not less than early on, sought to inflict direct ache on congressional Democrats and the federal authorities.
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A welcome signal is seen at Yosemite Nationwide Park in California on Dec. 13, 2023. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos)
That was carried out largely by the Workplace of Administration and Funds Director Russ Vought, who ordered mass firings of furloughed employees and withheld or canceled billions in federal funding to blue cities and states.
“It is not that this wasn’t a shutdown, it is simply that the alternatives the administration made have been an try and focus the impacts of the shutdown this spherical on the federal government itself,” Brittany Madni, govt vice chairman of the Financial Coverage Heart, instructed Fox Information Digital.
“This was showmanship from President Obama,” Madni continued. “And should you have a look at what occurred over the past 40 one thing days, it was the very same playbook by congressional Democrats.”
Madni argued that discussions and debate through the 2013 shutdown have been centered largely in Washington, D.C. The newest closure noticed a few of that, but it surely additionally noticed Trump persevering with to work on commerce offers, significantly throughout his high-profile go to to Asia, which was some extent of competition for Democrats on the Hill.
“He was doing his job,” Madni mentioned. “He was doing his job. In the meantime, congressional Democrats, fairly merely, weren’t.”
Nonetheless, there was a shared thread in each shutdowns: Obamacare.
In 2013, congressional Republicans needed to dismantle Obama’s signature piece of laws. Quick-forward, Senate Minority Chief Schumer, D-N.Y., led his caucus to push extensions to enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
Boccia mentioned that performed a big half in why Obama was on the vanguard throughout his shutdown.
“He was entrance and middle within the media speaking in regards to the shutdown, and since it was over his legacy achievement,” she mentioned.
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Senate Minority Chief Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is seen after a information convention within the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 5, 2025. (Tom Williams/Getty Photos)
It was as a result of his key legislative achievement was below hearth that Obama took such a central function within the shutdown, Boccia argued, however for Trump, who tried throughout his first administration to intestine and substitute Obamacare, it wasn’t a precedence.
“The truth that it was over the Obamacare COVID credit, I feel, made the president much less obligatory and maybe fascinated about being the face of the shutdown,” she mentioned. “It was actually a congressional battle.”
Madni disagreed that the most recent shutdown wasn’t a direct bid by congressional Democrats to go after considered one of his legislative achievements.
Earlier than the climactic failed vote within the Senate in late September that ushered within the longest shutdown in historical past, Democrats provided a counter-proposal that will have stripped a number of provisions from Trump’s “huge, lovely invoice,” which has to this point been the crowning legislative achievement of his second time period.
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“It is actually essential that everybody remembers the subsidy request was one request in a laundry checklist of radical, extremely costly concepts that added as much as $1.5 trillion,” Madni mentioned. “One other merchandise in that checklist was dismantling key parts of the One Massive, Stunning Invoice Act.”
“If this was actually in regards to the subsidies, then the Democrats would have been keen at any level over the past 43 days to regulate their asks and simply make it about subsidies,” she continued. “Not as soon as did they.”
