If you’re a Democrat, you know you’re in deep trouble if you lose the king of late-night comedy, Jon Stewart, in the middle of a pitched battle with the Republicans.

But that was the brutal reality check delivered by Stewart to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer last week, with Stewart calling Schumer a “human flat tire” for Schumer’s woefully ineffective messaging over the government shutdown.

As the country moved into the fourth week of a government shutdown, it’s clear that both Republicans and Democrats believe they have a winning hand. So, the shutdown looks like it will continue with no “off ramp” in sight.

That’s no laughing matter for either side or the country.

Schumer and his House counterpart, fellow New Yorker Hakeem Jeffries, continue to demand that Republicans agree to make permanent what are currently temporary enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act health insurance premiums. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that over the next 10 years, the Democrats’ permanent subsidy expansion would cost taxpayers another $350 billion on top of the billions in permanent subsidies already on the books.

That’s a big fiscal bite to swallow for the GOP, although there are Republicans — moderate and very conservative — who want the subsidy issue addressed.

How we got to this battle between Republican opposition to the expansion of another expensive program passed by Democrats — as well as Democratic willingness to shut down government over their latest line in the sand — is worth a short review.

It’s important to remember that this is a crisis of the Democrats’ own making that goes back more than 15 years, with passage of the health care law in 2010.

The bill passed the Senate in December 2009, at a time when Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats, so passage was all but guaranteed. In the end, it passed on a strictly partisan vote without a single Republican on board and included a subsidy structure for low-income users but not the enhanced subsidies at issue today.

Shortly after that, Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election for the Senate, and Democrats dropped to 59 seats, losing the ability to end a filibuster on a partisan vote.

That effectively forced House Democrats, many who had reservations about its design, implementation and impact, to vote for the Senate bill as-is. Additionally, the loss of the Senate seat in deep-blue Massachusetts unsettled Democrats about the impact of the Affordable Care Act on their party.

The health care bill went back to the House, which eventually passed the Senate version in March 2010 with 219 votes, again with all Republicans voting no, along with 34 Democrats. President Barack Obama signed it a couple of days later.

Biden-era bills and enhanced subsidies

The temporary enhanced premiums at issue today are the result of COVID-19, and were added as part of the American Rescue Plan, which was proposed by President Joe Biden and passed by the Democrats in March 2021.

This time, Democrats had the White House and majorities in the Senate and the House, but did not have a filibuster-proof Senate, so the American Rescue Plan was legislated as a reconciliation bill. Democrats included language that the enhanced premiums, meant to be temporary, would expire at the end of 2022.

Like the Affordable Care Act, no Republican voted for it, although there were additional reasons Republicans did not support the bill as well.

Then came the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. This started out as the Build Back Better Act in the House in 2021 to support Biden’s broader agenda. But when it became apparent virtually none of it would get Republican support, parts of it were spun off as a reconciliation bill so it could pass with just Democratic votes.

However, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia became the fly in the ointment for Schumer, who faced an uphill battle getting the bill through the Senate. Manchin was concerned in part because of the bill’s huge price tag for Biden’s Green New Deal proposals. Those costs, combined with the cost of extending the temporary enhanced health insurance premiums, as well as other Biden priorities, made it even more difficult to pass the bill.

The Inflation Reduction Act eventually passed and was signed by Biden in August 2022. Again, as expected, this reconciliation bill got no Republican votes, requiring Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the tie-breaking vote for passage. The bill extended the temporary enhanced premiums through 2025.

Democrats could have made the credits permanent back then or at least extended them for the next 10 years. Instead, they chose to only extend them three years, as there was other spending in the Inflation Reduction Act bill that Democrats were willing to prioritize over the enhanced premiums.

Despite Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s offer to discuss the enhanced subsidies issue as soon as government reopens, Schumer and Jeffries have refused to budge on their demand for a permanent extension that would add $350 billion to the continuing resolution.

Schumer and his fellow Democrats had an opportunity to make these enhanced subsidies permanent with passage of the Inflation Reduction Act three years ago but chose not to. After using the legislative process to minimize the impact of Republican votes dealing with the Affordable Care Act, the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, they now expect Republicans to do their job for them, make the subsidies permanent, and are willing to keep the government shut down indefinitely, regardless of the economic and national security impacts ahead.

Schumer and the Democrats expect, with Republicans having the White House, Senate and House, to accomplish what Democrats could not do when they had the White House, Senate and House.

Given the Democrats’ prior three exclusions of Republicans from participating first in the health care law, then the American Rescue Plan and then the Inflation Reduction Act, their current “my way or the highway” strategy of not allowing a vote to temporarily fund the government seems equally dismissive of the role of Republicans in the legislative process.

There are no winners in the shutdown, especially the American people.

David Winston is the president of The Winston Group and a longtime adviser to congressional Republicans. He previously served as the director of planning for Speaker Newt Gingrich. He advises Fortune 100 companies, foundations and nonprofit organizations on strategic planning and public policy issues, as well as serving as an election analyst for CBS News.