WITH the US Government teetering on
the brink of partial shutdown, congressional Republicans vowed to keep
using an otherwise routine federal funding Bill to try to attack the
President's health care law.
Congress was closed for the day after a post-midnight vote in the
GOP-run House to delay by a year key parts of the new health care law
and repeal a tax on medical devices, in exchange for avoiding a
shutdown.
The Senate was to convene this afternoon (US time), just
hours before the shutdown deadline, and Majority Leader Harry Reid,
Democrat-Nevada., had already promised that majority Democrats would
kill the House's latest volley.
Since the last government shutdown
17 years ago, temporary funding Bills known as continuing resolutions
have been non-controversial, with neither party willing to chance a
shutdown to achieve legislative goals it couldn't otherwise win. But
with health insurance exchanges set to open tomorrow, tea-party
Republicans are willing to take the risk in their drive to kill the
health care law.
Action in Washington was limited mainly to the Sunday talk shows and
a barrage of press releases as Democrats and Republicans rehearsed
arguments for blaming each other if the government in fact closes its
doors at midnight today.
"You're going to shut down the government
if you can't prevent millions of Americans from getting affordable
care," Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democart-Maryland said.
"The
House has twice now voted to keep the government open. And if we have a
shutdown, it will only be because when the Senate comes back, Harry
Reid says, 'I refuse even to talk,"' said Senator Ted Cruz,
Republican-Texas, who led a 21-hour broadside against allowing the
temporary funding Bill to advance if stripped clean of a Tea
Party-backed provision to derail Obamacare. The effort ultimately
failed.
The battle started with a House vote to pass the
short-term funding Bill with a provision that would have eliminated the
federal dollars needed to put President Barack Obama's health care
overhaul into place. The Senate voted along party lines to strip that
out and lobbed the measure back to the House.
The latest House measure, passed early yesterday by a near party-line
vote of 231-192, sent back to the Senate two key changes: a one-year
delay of key provisions of the health insurance law and repeal of a new
tax on medical devices that partially funds it, steps that still go too
far for The White House and its Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.
Senate
rules often make it difficult to act quickly, but the chamber can act
on the House's latest proposals by simply calling them up and killing
them.
Eyes were turning to the House for its next move. One of its
top leaders vowed the House would not simply give in to Democrats'
demands to pass the Senate's "clean" funding Bill.
"The House will
get back together in enough time, send another provision not to shut
the Government down, but to fund it, and it will have a few other
options in there for the Senate to look at again," said the No. 3 House
Republican leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California. "We are
not shutting the Government down."
He suggested that House
Republicans would try blocking a mandate that individuals buy health
insurance or face a tax penalty, saying there might be some Democratic
support in the Senate for that.
On the other hand, Democrats said the GOP's bravado might fade as the deadline to avert a shutdown neared.
Asked
whether he could vote for a "clean" temporary funding Bill,
Representative Raul Labrador, Republican-Idaho, said he could not. But
he said: "I think there's enough people in the Republican Party who are
willing to do that. And I think that's what you're going to see."
A leading Senate GOP moderate called on her fellow Republicans to back down.
"I
disagree with the strategy of linking Obamacare with the continuing
functioning of government — a strategy that cannot possibly work," said
Senator Susan Collins, Republican-Maine.
Mr McCarthy would not say
what changes Republicans might make. He appeared to suggest that a very
short-term measure might pass at the last minute, but GOP aides said
that was unlikely.
And rumours on Saturday night that GOP leaders
might include a provision to deny lawmakers and staff aides their
employer health care contributions from the Government had cooled by
yesterday afternoon.
Lawmakers and congressional aides are
required to purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act
exchanges, but the administration has taken steps to make sure they
continue to receive their 72 per cent employer contribution.
Republicans argued that Senator Reid should have convened the Senate yesterday to act on the measure.
"If
the Senate stalls until Monday afternoon instead of working today, it
would be an act of breathtaking arrogance by the Senate Democratic
leadership," said House Speaker John Boehner, Republican-Ohio. "They
will be deliberately bringing the nation to the brink of a government
shutdown."
In the event lawmakers blow the deadline, about 800,000 workers would be forced off the job without pay.
Some
critical services such as patrolling the borders, inspecting meat and
controlling air traffic would continue. Social Security benefits would
be sent, and the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs for the
elderly and poor would continue to pay doctors and hospitals.
The
Senate was not scheduled to meet until mid-afternoon today, 10 hours
before a shutdown would begin, and even some Republicans said privately
they feared that Senator Reid held the advantage in the fast-approaching
end game.
Republicans argued that they had already made
compromises; for instance, their latest measure would leave intact most
parts of the health care law that have taken effect, including requiring
insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions and to
let families' plans cover children up to age 26. They also would allow
insurers to deny contraception coverage based on religious or moral
objections.
Tea Party lawmakers in the House — egged on by Senator
Cruz — forced GOP leaders to abandon an earlier plan to deliver a
"clean" stopgap spending Bill to the Senate and move the fight to
another must-do measure looming in mid-October: a Bill to increase the
Government's borrowing cap to avert a market-rattling, first default on
US obligations.
heraldsun.com.au 30 Sep 2013 @ 15:28
Ground breaking news by the corporate media about one of the world's largest scams, that being the Corporation not the country known as the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (Inc.).
It is doubtful if ever the true extent of the fraud will be reported and the TRUTH exposed.
In a summary the people of the United States are in debt to the banking elite (a company known as the Federal Reserve Bank), a debt that is printed at face value which the people cannot repay.
