Congressman Robert Aderholt Talks Shutdown & More at Tuscaloosa Briefing

The US Congressman who represents much of West Alabama was in Tuscaloosa on Friday to discuss the ongoing government shutdown, expiring health insurance subsidies, extending tax cuts and more.

Republican Representative Robert Aderholt has served in DC since 1997, and became responsible for much of Tuscaloosa County in a 2012 redistricting. Everything south of the Black Warrior River, including Tuscaloosa, is represented by Democrat Terri Sewell. Aderholt's District 4 begins north of the river and extends north to the Tennessee line, west to Mississippi and east to Georgia.

He was at the Tuscaloosa Rivermarket Friday for the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama's first-ever Federal Affairs Briefing, where government and business leaders could hear first-hand about how DC drama impacts everyday life in Alabama.

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The event was hosted by Carl Jamison, the current chairman of the Chamber of Commerce's board.

The biggest topic for Aderholt was the ongoing shutdown of the US government, which is now the longest in history. Senate Democrats are voting against measures to fund the government in a fight to protect subsidies for federal health care plans.

Aderholt said those subsidies were meant to expire in 2020 when they were first approved in the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. They were only extended because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Aderholt said he opposed Obamacare when it first passed and is not supportive of extending those subsidies.

Without them, Americans who rely on ACA plans for their health insurance will see costs skyrocket.

Congressmen like Aderholt, who serves on several Appropriations Committees, control the power of the purse in the US government and are responsible for approving 12 budgets annually, totaling $1.8 trillion.

Only three of the 12 budgets have been passed for fiscal year 2026, which began on October 1st. While negotiations over the other nine stretch on, the government typically passes a continuing resolution, or CR, to "keep the lights on" while the larger bills are being passed.

"There's nothing in here for Republicans or Democrats," Aderholt said. "This is totally a mechanism to allow more time and negotiation on the appropriations process."

Since October, Senate Democrats have refused to pass a CR, grinding the federal government to a halt and leaving many workers furloughed, working without pay, or permanently laid off.

Funding of federal programs like SNAP food benefits has also come to a potentially calamitous halt, but Democrats have not budged and say they want those subsidies extended to keep health insurance affordable in order to end the shutdown.

Aderholt was not optimistic that a resolution could be negotiated soon.

"We'll see what happens with the [Senate] vote today or tomorrow, but it doesn't look like there's a lot of movement," Aderholt said. "I'm not sure what's going to happen, but that's where we are."

The core of the health care issue is these expiring ACA subsidies, and Aderholt said he's willing to negotiate on the health care issue, but not at the expense of ballooning the federal deficit further.

"We want to make health care affordable to everybody, but this extension they want to put in right now would really see a trillion dollars being added to the deficit," Aderholt said. "We've got to really think hard and long about how we do this and how it's structured, and that's why Republicans don't want to just sign off on something. They want to sit down and negotiate something. And this is going to take more than a 15-minute conversation."

Part of the reason the health insurance subsidies are being allowed to expire is to fund tax cuts, which were first passed in 2017 and made permanent in this year's "Big Beautiful Bill."

These tax cuts provide certainty to businesses and investors, Aderholt said, allowing better capital planning less prone to the shifting winds of politics.

"Knowing what your tax cuts are going to be, knowing that you won't be faced with a lot more taxes in the next few years and the uncertainty of all of it, that's really going to make a difference," Aderholt said. "The one Big Beautiful Bill, that's one of the aspects of it that I think is best. I'm always for a tax cut and happy to see what we passed in that bill was a great victory. Not just a victory for the Republicans, it was really a victory for the American people. I do think that economic development is based on lower taxes, less government regulation, and certainty in the process for your business plan."

Aderholt also called for reform on how appropriations are allocated each year, which is typically at least level-funded from the previous year, plus adjustments for inflation, meaning every budget gets bigger every year.

"What we need to get back to doing is going back and looking at what these agencies actually need in these departments instead of just automatically approving," Aderholt said. "There may be some parts of the department that need to be phased out or lowered, you know, things change."

The Republican Congressman praised West Alabama for its workforce development programs, which Aderholt said need to be a top American priority.

He discussed redistricting efforts in Texas, California, and elsewhere, noting that they are significant because Congress is more evenly split than ever before, and every vote will count moving forward. Both parties are showing a willingness to redraw district maps to flip some of those seats in the 2026 midterms.

For more coverage of news in West Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.