The stalemate over how to reopen the government is being inflamed by something no policy provision can fix: A deep-seeded distrust between the leaders of the parties.

The trust gap has a lengthy history and a profusion of roots. But it's resurfacing now over the thorny issue driving the budget impasse: Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.

Republicans say they're open to discussing the topic, but they’re insisting those talks happen later in the year.

“Dec. 31 is when that expires,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters Friday in the Capitol. “So Congress has three months to negotiate that.”

That timeline is a non-starter with Democrats, who simply don't trust GOP leaders to remain good to their word, particularly when it comes to strengthening a health care law that Republicans have fought to dismantle since it was adopted in 2010.

"Why would we believe that Republicans have any interest in addressing the Affordable Care Act, based on their word, when for 15 years Republicans have been doing everything possible to gut the Affordable Care Act?” asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) put it succinctly this week: “We think that when they say later, they mean never.”

The result has been a deadlock with no obvious way out.

Republicans say they won't negotiate before the Democrats help reopen the government. Democrats say they won't help reopen the government until the Republicans negotiate. And neither side has given an inch in the three days since the government shut its doors.

Distrust between the parties is not exactly new, especially in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed into the........

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