SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Today is Day 33 of the government shutdown. It's been a consequential weekend. More than 42 million Americans have had their food benefits, known as SNAP, put on hold, and 24 million people are expected to see hikes in their health care costs now that open enrollment has started for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The question for many lawmakers is whether the mounting fallout from the shutdown will change their willingness to negotiate an end to it all. Is this a turning point? NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt has been to a town hall in Maryland to hear what Democratic Senator Angela Alsobrooks and her constituents are saying about the shutdown. Hi, Barbara.
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: Hello.
PFEIFFER: So this weekend is a new milestone in the shutdown, not just moving into another month, but there were some big deadlines reached yesterday. Tell us about those.
SPRUNT: That's right. November 1 is a really important date here. In a lot of ways, it represents both sides of this shutdown. It's the day that SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, ran out of money. People who want to go to the grocery store to use their food assistance to buy groceries for their families just don't have that money. It's a major pain point of this shutdown, and something that advocates and other food assistance places like food banks have been, quite frankly, dreading for some time. And then yesterday was also the day of open enrollment for people buying health care on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Democrats have been pushing to extend health care subsidies that expire at the end of the year. Without them, people are seeing their premiums skyrocket for next year. So this has been a date that people have been watching as a potential pressure point for going forward.
PFEIFFER: Double financial pain, in a sense. We mentioned, Barbara, that you went to Maryland for a town hall. How often did you hear about the shutdown there?
SPRUNT: It came up a lot. There's a lot of federal workers in Maryland, so it was not a big surprise. And I spoke to some former federal workers there who told me they know how it feels have a shutdown happen, want to do your job, want to get paid for it, and then have politics interfere. The crowd was about 150 people, broadly supportive of the Democratic Party. But I'll say, the thing that surprised me was what I didn't hear. You know, a month into the shutdown with nutrition assistance on the chopping block, I expected there to be some fireworks. I thought that there would be more people pushing for Democrats to talk about what is the long-term strategy here in terms of getting out of this shutdown.
PFEIFFER: Did anyone, for example, say they think the Democrats should back down?
SPRUNT: No. Interestingly, the folks that I talked to - all Democrats - told me that they want the party to hold the line in their refusal to vote alongside Republicans to fund the government unless Republicans negotiate with them on those subsidies that we're talking about. Here's Christina Thompson, one of the attendees.
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: I think they should hold out as long as possible. It's clear whose shutdown this is, you know? The Republicans hold all the leverage and all the cards. And if we back out now, then, you know, we're just showing, again, that the party has no backbone.
SPRUNT: Democrats have been really lockstep in this, at least in public. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has been able to keep his caucus together. The number of people who voted alongside Republicans to fund the government earlier on the eve of the shutdown has remained at three. There's been a lot of discipline in messaging from the Democrats, you know, the focus on health care, talking about how Republicans will own the blame of a shutdown because they control Congress and the White House.
PFEIFFER: So Democrats blame Republicans. Republicans blame Democrats. We have this gridlock. How possible is it that it will take the pain of the impasse and the loss of the benefits to finally get them to agree to something?
SPRUNT: I think that that is a significant factor. At the end of the day, ending the shutdown, which removes those pain points that you're describing, you know, that only happens if more than a handful of Democrats join the Republicans in voting to fund the government. Democrats see that as a type of leverage, and they've been trying to use it to force a negotiation with Republicans. For the last month or so, it hasn't worked. So the big question for me heading into this week is, does the impact from this weekend become so uncomfortable for lawmakers that it brings them to that negotiating table in a way that we haven't seen?
PFEIFFER: That's NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt. Thank you.
SPRUNT: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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