{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://figures.house.gov/media/in-the-news/figures-discusses-government-shutdown-town-hall-meeting", "Figures discusses government shutdown at town hall meeting", "2025-10-17", "2025", "2025-10", "Democrat", "House", "AL", "Shomari Figures", "F000481", "figures.house.gov", "figures", "https://figures.house.gov/media", "scraper", "U.S. Rep Shomari Figures said there were three reasons he voted against a continuing resolution to fund the federal government.\n\nFigures held a town hall meeting in Troy at the new Academy Street Career Innovation Academy on Wednesday night. Figures was in town to discuss the ongoing government shutdown with constituents. Figures said he wanted to explain to people why he voted against the continuing resolution to fund the federal government. But, first he wanted to explain how the country\u2019s leaders arrived at this point.\n\n\u201cI know the shutdown is top of mind for everybody,\u201d Figures said \u201cSo, we\u2019ll talk through some of that, what that looks like, what it means for you to possibly see what the services are that will be impacted [and] my position on everything. The government-made shutdown basically is a very direct way of saying that the government \u2026 has run out of its authority to spend money.\u201d\n\nFigures said Congress had to appropriate money for the nation\u2019s budget and then Congress passes the money to the government which then has the legal authority to spend the money. Figures said the last time Congress passed a full budget was when Barack Obama was president. He said Congress has been operating under what are called continuing resolutions, which are bills that give the government temporary spending authority. He said the continuing resolutions are usually passed for three or six months. When Congress can\u2019t agree on passage of one of the continuing resolutions, there\u2019s a government shutdown.\n\n\u201cSo, that\u2019s how we got to where we are,\u201d Figures said. \u201cNow we run into Sept. 30. Congress again is debating extending the spending agreement. For me, it boiled down to three big things. \u2026 \u201cI really try to focus on this district and try to put resources back in this district. But as I assess whether or not to support extending the spending authority after Sept. 30, for me it boiled down to three things.\u201d\n\nFigures said his decision was based on health care, President Donald Trump not spending money that had been authorized by Congress and tariffs. He said those three issues had a direct impact on everyday citizens. According to Figures, said one of the changes made in Trump\u2019s \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill\u201d got rid of the Affordable Care Act health care premium subsidy assistance.\n\n\u201cOne of the changes it made was to get rid of the Affordable Care Act health care premium subsidy assistance, which that is singularly responsible for keeping health care premiums in check and affordable for everybody that, well, not everybody, but for most people that purchase health care through the Affordable Care Act,\u201d Figures said. \u201cIn this district alone, from the 13 counties that I represent, that\u2019s around 50,000 people. About 50,000 people, 50,000 people who purchased health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. And in the big bill, they let those expire. If we don\u2019t extend it, the premiums for those 50,000 plus people will, on average, more than go up.\u201d\n\nFigures said he confirmed the cost increase projections with Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which is the largest health insurance provider in Alabama. He said the price increase would vary from person-to-person because the Affordable Care Act subsidies are based on a sliding income scale. But, he said a married couple 61-years-old making $82,000 combined income could see an increase in premiums of up to $20,000.\n\nThe Affordable Care Act subsidies expire on Dec. 31, 2025. According to a statement from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., the Sept. 30 continuing resolution is the same CR that Democrats voted for 13 times during the Biden Administration. According to Johnson\u2019s statement, Democrats are holding the Sept. 30 CR hostage and shutting down the government over a policy fight that will take place in December when the actual subsidies expire.\n\n\u201cI cannot sell out 50,000 people and support a spending board that\u2019s going to allow health care in this district to be more than dealt with by the people that need it the most,\u201d Figures said. \u201cSo, I voted against extending the funding without protections of health care subsidies to the people in this district. In this district, health care outcomes are crazy. Alabama has the third lowest life expectancy in America. I\u2019m going to say it a different way this time. If you are born or live in this district, you are expected to die before people in every other state with the exception of Mississippi and West Virginia.\u201d\n\nFigures said he also believed that if Congress appropriated money, the money should be spent the way Congress intended.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a lot of action right now we\u2019ve never seen before in the history of this country as it relates to spending, as it relates to the president exercising a unilateral authority to decide what to spend money on, what to [hold] money back on,\u201d Figures said. \u201cWe\u2019ve literally never seen before in the history of this country, not either a Democratic or a Republican administration, the president saying, \u2018I am not spending the money that Congress told us we had to spend.\u2019 We\u2019ve never seen that. And if we continue to go down that slope, that means that tomorrow morning when they wake up, they can say, we\u2019re not going to spend money to go to Troy University. We\u2019re not going to spend money to fund the infrastructure projects that we committed to Pike County, or whatever. That\u2019s not the way our system of government was designed to work.\u201d\n\nHe said the lack of spending affected everyday people in not only Congressional District 2, but the whole State of Alabama. He said Troy University had lost research funding and the University of Alabama at Birmingham had lost major research funding. He said farmers in Alabama also lost a $2 million contract for providing produce for the state\u2019s reduced lunch program, among other cuts.\n\nHe said the final reason he voted against the CR was because tariffs affected the everyday consumer.\n\n\u201cWe have a global interconnected economy,\u201d Figures said. \u201cYou raised tariffs on the price of goods that are coming from other countries. The companies that are buying them, they\u2019re not just gonna eat those tariffs. Nobody\u2019s going to say, yep, you know what? In the interest of making America great, I\u2019m just going to pay these tariffs. That\u2019s not how it works. Nobody expects you to do that. It\u2019s not fair to a business owner to do that.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://figures.house.gov/media/in-the-news/figures-discusses-government-shutdown-town-hall-meeting"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4172662049531937, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}