Maine Democrat Rep. Jared Golden issued a lengthy Substack post on Friday morning urging lawmakers in Washington to end the federal shutdown.
In doing so, Rep. Golden pushed back against the narrative that reopening the government is necessarily contingent upon the left and right reaching an agreement over extending an enhanced tax credit.
The expanded credit in question, first created in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), gives many Americans access to free or discounted monthly premiums health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace.
Without intervention from Congress, this tax credit is set to expire at the end of this year. Should this happen, only the more limited version of the tax credit originally included in the ACA will remain in effect going forward.
In Friday’s post, shared on his Substack page Dear Mainer, Golden clearly expressed support for extending the tax credit, highlighting how he co-sponsored a bipartisan bill for a one-year extension of the program.
“These credits help Americans buy ACA marketplace insurance, but expire in January,” he wrote.”Health care costs will spike dramatically for millions of Americans. For some, coverage will become unaffordable and they’ll lose it entirely.”
Despite this, Golden explains that he does not believe this policy debate should be intertwined with the current government shutdown.
“But this has nothing to do with the current shutdown fight,” wrote Golden. “These tax credits expire in January not because of the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ or any other legislation passed in this Congress or the last. It was the Inflation Reduction Act — a bill passed entirely by Democrats in 2022 — that mandated their expiration at the end of this year.”
This represents a starkly different position than that which has been espoused by his counterpart in Maine’s First Congressional District, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D).
In a statement shared earlier this month, Rep. Pingree framed the shutdown, fundamentally, as a fight over the extension of the enhanced ACA tax credit.
“[Democrats’] goal is to protect everyone’s health care during this fight, to restore the cuts related to health care, and to make sure that Republicans don’t break their promises going into the future,” she said.
“If Congress does not extend the enhanced premium tax credits immediately,” she said, “hundreds of thousands of people will lose their health care and millions more will see their costs skyrocket.”
“Republicans acted quickly to pass tax cuts for their billionaire buddies by July 4, despite them also expiring December 31 of this year,” continued Pingree — who until relatively recently was married to a billionaire. “Americans are already getting notices about skyrocketing costs and deciding now if they can afford to keep their health coverage.”
“Everyone will be impacted by this,” Pingree said. “When you couple it with [the $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid] in the Big Ugly Bill, which will affect MaineCare, it’s going to affect our hospitals and a tremendous number of Mainers.”
Click Here to Read Rep. Pingree’s Full Statement
Similarly, Matt Dunlap — the Democrat candidate running against Golden in 2026 primary — has accused the Second District representative of “siding with Republicans and putting working families at risk” in a recent statement shared with members of the press.
“Instead of standing strong to protect Mainers, Golden caved to Trump again — and put thousands of Mainers at risk of losing their health insurance,” wrote Dunlap. “That’s not leadership, that’s surrender.”
Golden’s post Friday went on to argue that it is wrong to shutdown the government over what he refers to as a “normal policy debate.”
“The tax credits are a live debate. There are Republicans in both chambers who want to extend them. We can win on the merits,” he wrote.
Golden then characterizes the shutdown as being “driven by demands, from some in the Democrats’ base and far-left groups, for the party to visibly ‘fight’ Donald Trump.”
“While I know this comment upset some, progressives aren’t hiding their intentions,” he said. “Back in March when Senate Democrats, including Leader Chuck Schumer, voted to keep the government open, progressives in his caucus and in activist circles were furious.”
“Despite the spin, the truth remains,” Golden concluded. “Voting against it won’t undo the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ or stop the ACA tax credits from expiring. It just keeps the government shut down.”
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