ICYMI: Sen. Sullivan Reiterates Call to End Government Shutdown on KTUU
WASHINGTON—In an appearance on Alaska’s Political Pipeline on Alaska’s News Source on Thursday, U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) again called for his Senate Democratic colleagues to vote for the clean, bipartisan continuing resolution (CR) to open the government in order to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), pay essential federal workers, and end the flight disruptions taking place across the country.
In his interview with Wil Courtney, Sen. Sullivan highlighted the failures of Obamacare—which has driven up Alaska’s already high health care premiums, and reaffirmed his commitment to work with Republicans and Democrats in Congress on potential reforms and extensions of expiring subsidies once the government is reopened.
Click here or the image above to watch the KTUU interview.
The Shutdown is Hurting Alaskans
“Too many people are hurting. Now, you're starting to see care, traffic, travel being disrupted. All of this could be fixed tonight or tomorrow here in the Senate. If we just had eight Democrat senators join the three who have already joined us and vote to reopen the government. That's what the American people want. That's what the vast majority of Alaskans want.”
FAA Flight Reductions
“Look, that announcement is a really problematic announcement now, but it's all about safety. You know, we got a briefing on this. I'm on the Commerce Committee that they're doing these reductions in major airports, including Anchorage, including Seattle, because our FAA workers are tired.
They're not getting paid. Again, we've now gone into the longest shutdown in American history. So this is the most unnecessary, useless shutdown I've ever seen in my career here. We have voted now, Wil, 14 times to reopen the government, by the way, a bipartisan vote. The Democrats are voting with us. That would cure all these issues, not just air traffic control and FAA—the delays we're going to start seeing in airports, but SNAP, federal workers not getting paid, it would solve everything.
Then, Wil, you may have seen last week the Senate voted on my bill and Senator Johnson's bill to at least pay federal workers who are required to work like FAA workers, like TSA workers.
Again, bipartisan group of senators, Democrats and Republicans said that we should do that, but you need 60 here in the Senate. Senator Schumer keeps pressuring his Democrat senators not to vote to reopen the government, not to pay federal workers who are working. I'll tell you this, people are hurting. This is not a game.
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The Secretary of Transportation and the FAA Administrator today made this announcement and it's based on safety. You have FAA officials who are required to work, of course, who aren't getting paid. Some are coming into work, some are having to go do Uber jobs to get paid. All of this—it's going to delay flights.
There's no doubt airlines are already talking about canceling a certain number of flights. That's going to disrupt travel across America, across Alaska. Let me go back to the point, there's a real easy fix. Vote for the bipartisan, continuing resolution.”
Filibuster
“I understand [President Trump’s] frustration. I'm frustrated. He's frustrated because, remember, the filibuster is this fancy word, what it essentially means in the Senate, the rule is that it requires 60 senators to move pretty much anything, with the exception of a few kind of bills.
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We don't have the votes to get rid of that 60 vote rule, to get rid of the filibuster. For Alaskans, that rule has been really important to us. The national Democrats in the Senate, in the House, in the White House, we saw with Joe Biden, and we certainly see with Chuck Schumer their goal is to shut down Alaska.
If we didn't have the filibuster, trust me, Alaska would be one giant national park right now with no economy at all.
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Look what Joe Biden did when he had four years in office. 70 executive orders exclusively focused on Alaska, almost all to undermine our economy, to kill jobs and they did a really good job at killing jobs. So, no, I think that the 60 vote threshold in the US Senate has saved Alaska from being shut down by national Democrats over many, many years.”
SNAP
“All the issues you're talking about, paying our military, paying the air traffic controllers, paying TSA, making sure we have SNAP funds, every single one of these get solved if there was a simple vote to reopen the government, which is what we've been trying to do.
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I voted 14 times for SNAP. I'm going to vote for SNAP tomorrow. I've been voting to reopen the government with Senate Democrats. We’ll have more voting with us tomorrow. The one guy who's making sure SNAP benefits are not getting to Americans is the leader of the Democrat Party in the Senate.
In my view, he's put in politics above the interests of Alaskans. And it's shameful. Never seen anything like it.”
Obamacare Subsidies
“Obamacare, as you've seen, we have [in Alaska] the highest premiums in the country. Obamacare has not worked. The subsidies have driven up these costs. They go directly to the insurance companies. If you remember, the Democrats were the ones who put the end date on subsidies right now. That was their call.
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There's been a lot of fraud in [the marketplace] and I'm working to bring down the health care costs, which are way too high.
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That’s been driven by the failed Obamacare policies. And the cliff that we're talking about right now was put in place by Senate Democrats.
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I am working very diligently on reforms and extensions to these subsidies, and I'm hopeful that we're going to be able to get there. One final thing: Senate Majority Leader Thune, President Trump, the Speaker of the House, they've all said, of course we'll have negotiations on this. Let's open the government. We're holding people as hostages, and let's get those negotiations and discussions going.”
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