Mulvaney: We’ve Offered Dems $1 of Obamacare Subsidies for $1 of Wall Funding, Schumer Rejects Offer

During an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney said that giving Democrats a dollar of Obamacare cost-sharing reductions payments for one dollar of wall funding is “the offer that we’ve given to our Democrat colleagues.” The offer was dismissed by Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Mulvaney said, “We’ve finally boiled this negotiation down to something that we want very badly, that the Democrats really don’t like, and that’s the Border wall. at the same time, there’s something they want very badly that we don’t like very much, which are these cost-sharing reductions of the Obamacare payments. Ordinarily, in a properly functioning Washington, DC, as in any business, this would be the basis upon which a negotiated resolution could be achieved. The question is, how much of our stuff do we have to get, how much of their stuff are they willing to take? And that’s the way it should work. That is the way that we hope that it works. We’d offer them one dollar of CSR payments for one dollar of wall payments. Right now, that’s the offer that we’ve given to our Democrat colleagues. … If the Democrats come back to us and say, ‘Look, we can’t do that, we can do this,’ that’s a really, really good sign, not only in the short-term, but in the long-term. If they simply walk away, and choose to not participate in the discussions, that’s a bad sign, not only in the short-term, but for the next several years.”

After Mulvaney’s comments, Schumer spokesman Matt House responded to Mulvaney with a statement that such a deal “is a complete non-starter.” And slamming the White House for threatening to hold healthcare “hostage” to get taxpayers to pay for a wall that the president promised Mexico would pay for.

(h/t Mediaite)

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