Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s First Congressional District took questions from 11 callers in an Oct. 8 “tele-town hall” during which he repeatedly blamed Senate Democrats for the government shutdown that is now in its third week, defended provisions in the Republican-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and ignored a question regarding the late Jeffrey Epstein.
The congressman, a Republican serving his second term in the House of Representatives, said in the hourlong session that he had recently visited Brookhaven National Laboratory, food banks in the district, and air traffic controllers at MacArthur Airport, and spoke of the stress the government shutdown has brought to these entities and their personnel. He also referred to members of the Coast Guard and the 106th Rescue Wing at the Francis S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base in Westhampton Beach. “We cannot allow political games in Washington to compromise the safety and security of our nation and those who serve it,” he said.
The House has been adjourned for more than 10 of the last 12 weeks, stretching back to Speaker Mike Johnson’s abrupt adjournment in July to block a vote on releasing additional files related to the investigation of Epstein, a convicted sex offender and onetime friend of President Trump who was jailed on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019.
The partial government shutdown began on Oct. 1, after Republicans and Democrats could not agree on a bill funding government services. Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House, but need 60 votes in the Senate to pass a spending bill. With a 53-to-47 majority, seven Democrats would have to vote with Republicans to pass a continuing resolution — a bill to fund the government — but they have held firm in demanding that Republicans negotiate on enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, which are set to expire on Dec. 31. Millions of Americans will lose their health insurance or see premiums skyrocket, Democrats say, as a consequence of the One Big Beautiful Bill, passed in the House with no Democratic support and signed into law in July.
Mr. LaLota referred to Democrats 47 times in his virtual town hall. A constituent in Port Jefferson said that he was concerned about upcoming flights because of the air traffic controllers, who have received partial paychecks but may miss their next payments entirely if the shutdown continues. The House is on leave, the caller said, asking “what kind of image do you think that sets” when air traffic controllers “must work without pay?”
“The easiest and most simple thing to be done right away,” Mr. LaLota said, “is for seven or eight senators to cross the aisle and join with 52, 53 Republicans to fund the status quo government. . . . The first thing that should be done is [Senator] Chuck Schumer should release eight Democrat senators to vote for the funding bill.” House Republicans voted last month for a “clean continuing resolution,” which “merely says that we will continue status quo funding, giving us more time to negotiate on everything else,” he said. “I’m going to tell you, sir, that this is right now on Chuck Schumer’s head, and Senate Democrats.”
Mr. Schumer, he said, is under pressure from fellow Democrats. “I get it that some Americans, even some of my constituents, aren’t big fans of the president,” he said. “But right now, what the Democrat Party, or at least one wing of the Democrat Party, is doing, is they’re saying ‘oppose him on everything, everywhere,’ and to defund the government just because he’s the president.”
A caller from Huntington who described herself as unaffiliated with a political party asked why Congress was being paid when federal workers were not, and “why aren’t more Republicans crossing the aisle so that Medicaid is reinstated and not millions and millions and millions of people are going to have insurance premiums raised?”
Mr. LaLota said that at his request, his own pay is being withheld “so long as the troops’ pay is being withheld.” Regarding Medicaid, he said the only reform to the program in the One Big Beautiful Bill “was that work requirements were implemented for able-bodied adults. So if you’re between 18 and 65 and you’re not disabled and you want your neighbors to pay your health care, you have to work, seek work, volunteer, or go to school 80 hours per month. . . . We’re making it more solvent for the people it was designed to serve.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the One Big Beautiful Bill will cut federal Medicaid spending by $911 billion over 10 years and result in an increase in the number of uninsured people by 10 million in 2034. The provision mandating work and reporting requirements is the largest single source of spending cuts. The expiration of enhanced premium tax credits for the Affordable Care Act marketplace, new limits on state provider taxes, and more frequent eligibility redeterminations are also predicted to result in coverage loss.
A caller in Rocky Point who said she works in health care voiced concern about the removal of Affordable Care Act subsidies “and people having to pay double, triple the amount that they’re currently paying,” while members of Congress “supported these huge tax cuts to the billionaires.” She also complained that Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election in Arizona last month, has still not been sworn in, and that Mr. LaLota has not supported the release of information on Epstein.
On taxes, “We kept the status quo on . . . mostly everything from the 2017 bill,” Mr. LaLota said of the Republican-led tax overhaul. “We mostly righted the wrong that was the capping at $10,000 of your state and local tax deduction” in that 2017 legislation, which preceded Mr. LaLota’s election. The cap was increased to $40,000 this year. “We didn’t change the top rate for the so-called billionaires,” he said.
He called for a “debate, and maybe even new policy on things like these A.C.A. premium tax credits,” which he said were “called temporary by Democrats and called pandemic-related” and later extended through 2025 in “the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.” Now, he said, “somehow Democrats can’t vote for status quo funding of our government until and unless Republicans extend the tax credits that Democrats themselves always made to be temporary,” which he called “political extortion and hostage-taking.”
He did not address the caller’s question about Epstein.
Another caller from Port Jefferson told the congressman that “not negotiating is un-American, and the Republicans own this shutdown.” How, she asked, did he intend to support veterans who depend on clinical services on a daily basis “during this Republican shutdown?”
“Totally disagree with your characterization,” Mr. LaLota said. “We House Republicans voted on September 19th for status quo funding in a bill that had no partisan riders, no tricks, no gimmicks, no cuts, no nothing — status quo funding for 52 days. The Democrat Party in the Senate rejected that.” Mr. Schumer, he said, “has told his members they can’t vote for it. Chuck Schumer is scared of [Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. He’s scared of [Zohran] Mamdani,” the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City. “I hear that’s what they’re saying on MSNBC, that somehow this is a Republican shutdown.”
“I recognize that people both love and don’t love the president of the United States,” he said in concluding remarks. “I recognize that people have different views on taxing the rich. They have different views on who should be afforded government health care, different views on guns, different views on spending overseas.” Government shutdowns, he said, “are generally done by the extremes of the parties” and are effectively self-inflicted wounds that do not achieve proponents’ ends.
“I will continue to support a clean continuing resolution which funds all these different agencies and the employees that run them,” he said, “because I think that we need to have some sort of stability in our great country.”
