Pat Donahue, Coastal Courier
The House has done its job in keeping the government open and running – it’s the Senate’s Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, getting in the way, U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter said Tuesday.
Carter, the longtime representative for Georgia’s 1st District, spoke to Hinesville Rotary Club members about the ongoing government shutdown, among several topics. U.S. House members are back at home until Monday while the Senate and the White House try to iron out differences in continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded.
“It’s anybody’s guess what’s going to happen,” Carter said.
The House passed what Carter called a clean continuing resolution to keep the government funded through November 21. As the measure stalls in the Senate, federal workers may miss upcoming paychecks, and soldiers may miss their October 15 paychecks too. Also, the fund for WIC – the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children program – is running out of money.
“It is impacting people,” he said. “It impacts Hinesville and Liberty County tremendously. It is going to impact people even more as time goes on.”
The last shutdown lasted 35 days, he said. He does hold out hope that if the looks like the Senate Republicans are getting close to 60 votes – the number needed to avoid a filibuster – there may be either more Democrats siding with the Republicans or even those Republicans reluctant to support a continuing resolution signing on to the bill.
“We’re willing to negotiate,” Carter said of his fellow Republicans, “but open the government first.”
The sticking points for Democrats, Carter said, are the end of subsidies approved during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those subsidies were planned to end with the pandemic’s end.
“If they wanted them to permanent, they could have. But they didn’t,” he said.
The Working Families Tax Act – the now official title of what was referred to as the “big, beautiful bill” – is saving Georgians $5,000 a year, Carter said. The legislation removed income taxes on tips and overtime, and expanded the child care tax credit.
Carter also rebuked attacks the measure kicked thousands of Medicaid. Carter chairs the Subcommittee on Health for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
“What we did was make Medicaid better,” Carter rebutted. “It is a safety net program for the most vulnerable in our society.”
House Republicans, in passing the Working Families Tax Act, removed provisions to allow those in the country illegally to receive Medicaid benefits, said Carter. (BCN Editorial note: Illegal immigrants are not, nor have they ever been, eligible for federal health insurance programs, including Medicaid).
He also claimed some states were extending those benefits to “illegals”, charging they were using federal dollars instead of state dollars for the coverage.
The Act also stopped providing Medicaid to the able-bodied and instead instituted a measure that they had to either work or volunteer 20 hours a week to be eligible, Carter added.
“It is not for somebody who is able-bodied,” he said. “They would be better off in some of the other Affordable Care programs, but not Medicaid.”
Carter said ending the shutdown and discussing some of the concerns is necessary. He pointed out Georgia’s two senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, so far have voted against re-opening the government. Carter also is a candidate for Ossoff’s Senate seat, which is up for election in 2026.
“They want to negotiate on health care issues. We do need to negotiate. We should,” he said. “However, we need to open the government back up. You shouldn’t be using troops or WIC as leverage. It’s not fair to the American citizens.”
Pat Donahue is the general manager and editor of the Coastal Courier.