U.S. Shutdown Nears, as Talk Is of Blame, Not of a Deal
By ASHLEY PARKER
With hours before a midnight deadline to finance the government,
Democrats and Republicans steeled themselves for the first government
shutdown in 17 years and tried to assign blame to each other.
With Shutdown Near, Talk Is of Who’s at Fault, Not of a Deal
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Speaker John A. Boehner arrived at the Capitol on Monday.
By ASHLEY PARKER
Published: September 30, 2013
WASHINGTON — The House returned Monday morning, just hours before a
midnight deadline to finance the government, with both Democrats and
Republicans steeling themselves for a worst-case situation — the first
government shutdown in 17 years — and trying to assign blame to the
other party.
Fiscal Crisis Updates
Developments in the potential government shutdown and looming debt ceiling fight.
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The Senate, which returns Monday afternoon, is expected to
overwhelmingly reject a bill passed by the Republican-controlled House
this weekend that would delay the full effect of President Obama’s
health care law as a condition for continuing to finance the government
past Monday. But no one — not even House Republicans themselves — seemed
to know what would happen next.
Though a shutdown of large portions of the government has seemed
increasingly inevitable, some lawmakers said they believed that a
last-minute solution might still be reached.
“I still hold up a small hope that the Republicans will come to their
senses, that the mainstream Republicans will say ‘enough already,'”
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said on “Morning Joe”
on MSNBC on Monday, urging the House Republican leadership to put a
spending bill without policy prescriptions to a vote on the floor. “The
question is, does Speaker Boehner need to engage in something like the
ancient practice of sacrifice, this time to the right-wing gods? Do we
have to sacrifice the economy, help for millions of middle-class
people?”
On the House floor Monday morning, Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio showed no signs of backing down, arguing that the health care law “is not ready for prime time.”
“The House has done its work,” he said. “We passed a bill on Saturday
night — sent it to the United States Senate — that would delay Obamacare
for one year, and would eliminate permanently the medical device tax
that is costing us tens of thousands of jobs that are being shipped
overseas.”
Mr. Boehner criticized the Senate for not working over the weekend, a
move by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, to
run down the clock and leave House Republicans with undesirable options
before the government shuts down after midnight: to either pass a
spending bill without policy prescriptions to keep the government
financed and open, or to double down on their hard-line stance and
possibly be blamed for a shutdown.
“Senate decided not to work yesterday,” Mr. Boehner continued. “Well, my
goodness, if there’s such an emergency, where are they? It’s time for
the Senate to listen to the American people, just like the House has
listened to the American people, and to pass a one-year delay of
Obamacare and a permanent repeal of the medical device tax.”
Mr. Reid has repeatedly said that Senate Democrats plan to table
portions of the House spending bill, including provisions to delay the
health care law by one year, repeal a medical device tax and allow
businesses to opt out of contraception coverage for their employees. The
Senate is set to send back to the House a stripped-down spending bill,
giving Republicans just hours to offer an alternate plan before the
government would shut down and hundreds of thousands of workers would be
furloughed.
Mr. Boehner had hoped to persuade the unruly conservative members of his
conference to save the fight to defund the health care law until a
debate on the debt ceiling, in which he believes Republicans hold more
leverage and Mr. Obama would be forced to negotiate. But House
Republicans were ecstatic Saturday when Mr. Boehner and his leadership
team in a closed-door meeting presented their plan to allow Republicans
to use the stopgap spending measure to delay the full effect of the
Affordable Care Act.
On Sunday, House Republicans had already started trying to assign blame,
with more than a dozen members holding a news conference on the steps
of the Capitol to complain that the Senate had refused to work over the
weekend.
“Now today, we see the Senate doors are shut. They’re locked,” said
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the chairwoman of
the House Republican Conference. “Senator Harry Reid says it is
‘inevitable’ that the government is going to shut down. Well, if the
Senate doesn’t act, it may be inevitable. But we’re here to say that the
Senate needs to act. Why are they waiting? Why aren’t those doors
open?”
Speaking on CNBC on Monday morning, Representative Marsha Blackburn,
Republican of Tennessee, echoed her party’s view that it is Senate
Democrats and Mr. Obama, not House Republicans, who are forcing a
possible government shutdown.
“What we want to do is solve the problem, and we’ve been trying to do
it, and we’re disappointed that the Senate decided that they didn’t want
to stay here and work,” Ms. Blackburn said. “We’ve been trying to solve
the problem. We’re not the ones that want a shutdown.”
As legislators try to stave off a shutdown, a few options — albeit
unlikely ones — have emerged. House Republicans could pass a short-term
measure to finance the government that does not include any of their
health care delays, in order to buy more time to come up with another
plan. Or House Republicans could try to force Mr. Reid to accept a
repeal of the tax on medical devices — a step that many Democrats also
support — in exchange for the House’s not sending over a bill with new
language that would require members of Congress and their staffs, as
well as White House staff members, to buy their health insurance on the
new exchanges, without any government subsidies.
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