No compromise: Government on brink of a shutdown?
WASHINGTON — Moving closer to the brink of a government shutdown, House Republicans vowed Thursday they won’t simply accept the stopgap legislation that is likely to remain after Senate Democrats strip away a plan to dismantle President Barack Obama’s health care law.
A sense of confusion settled over the House, both over how to avoid a shutdown and how to handle even more important legislation to increase the government’s borrowing ability to avert a default on U.S. obligations. Short of votes, House leaders shelved a vote that had been expected this weekend on the debt limit measure and gave frustrated GOP lawmakers few clues about what they plan to do to avoid a shutdown.
The chaos sets the stage for weekend drama on Capitol Hill, with the Senate planning to send the fractious House a straightforward bill today to keep the government operating through Nov. 15 rather than partly closing down at midnight Monday.
Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and several rank-and-file Republicans said the House simply won’t accept a “clean” spending measure, even though that’s been the norm in Congress on dozens of occasions since the 1995-96 government closures that bruised Republicans and strengthened the hand of Democratic President Bill Clinton.
“I don’t see that happening,” Boehner said. Still, he declared that “I have no interest in a government shutdown” and he doesn’t expect one to occur on Tuesday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said the Democratic-led chamber will not relent.
“The Senate will never pass a bill that guts the Affordable Care Act,” Reid declared.
A partial government shutdown would keep hundreds of thousands of federal workers off the job, close national parks and generate damaging headlines for whichever side the public held responsible.
Washington faces two deadlines: The Oct. 1 start of the new budget year and a mid-October date — now estimated for the 17th — when the government can no longer borrow money to pay its bills on time and in full.
The first deadline requires Congress to pass a spending bill to allow agencies to stay open. The midmonth deadline requires Congress to increase the government’s $16.7 trillion borrowing cap to avoid a first-ever default on its payments, which include interest obligations, Social Security benefits, payments to thousands of contractors large and small, and salaries for the military.
The standoff just four days before the end of the fiscal year increased the possibility of a shutdown, with no signs of compromise.
The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said that because of the time it takes the Senate to approve even noncontroversial bills, if the House amends a Senate-passed spending bill and returns it to the Senate over the weekend, “That is a concession on their part that we’re going to shut down the government.”
Not far from the Capitol, at a community college in Largo, Md., Obama insisted he would not negotiate over his signature domestic achievement, either on a bill to keep the government operating or legislation to raise the nation’s borrowing authority.
“The entire world looks to us to make sure that the world economy is stable. You don’t mess with that,” Obama said of the debt ceiling/default measure. “And that’s why I will not negotiate on anything when it comes to the full faith and credit of the United States of America.”
Responding to Obama’s non-negotiable stand, Boehner said, “Well, I’m sorry but it just doesn’t work that way.”