Senate OKs stopgap-spending bill

Funding for health-care law survives; House battle looms

With time running out, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell walks past the Ohio Clock to the House chamber Friday for the vote on a bill to fund the government, but stripped of language that defunds the health-care law.
With time running out, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell walks past the Ohio Clock to the House chamber Friday for the vote on a bill to fund the government, but stripped of language that defunds the health-care law.

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Friday approved stopgap-spending legislation to keep the federal government open without gutting President Barack Obama’s health-care law, setting up a weekend showdown with the House that will decide whether much of the government shuts down at 11 p.m. CDT Monday.

The 54-44 vote for final passage came after a more critical moment when the Senate, in a bipartisan rebuke to Republican hard-liners, cut off debate on the legislation. The 79-19 vote included Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and much of the Republican leadership with the exception of Sen. Jerry Moran ofKansas, who heads the party’s campaign committee, and easily exceeded the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster. Both of Arkansas’ senators, Republican John Boozman and Democrat Mark Pryor, voted to end the debate, but Boozman voted against passing the bill while Pryor was for it.

The Senate then voted along party lines, 54-44, to strip out House Republican language that tied further funding of the government to defunding the health-care law. That vote required only a simple 51-vote majority, and Pryor voted for it while Boozman was against it.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, called the votes “the first step toward wresting control from the extremists.” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, had been urging his Senate colleagues all week to oppose ending debate as a way to force Democrats to accept language defunding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But with the clock ticking toward a government shutdown, an overwhelming bipartisan majority wanted to act quickly to move the spending bill back to the House.

“We now move on to the next stage of this battle,” Cruz said.

Obama, speaking in the White House briefing room after the vote, called on Republicans to accept the Senate measure to avoid government disruptions. “Do not threaten to burn the house down just because you haven’t gotten 100 percent of your way,” Obama said.

“Do not shut down the government. Do not shut down the economy. Pass a budget on time. Pay our bills on time. Refocus on the everyday concerns of the American people.”

SPLIT SEEN IN GOP

Now, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio faces the choice of supporting the Senate bill, which funds the government through Nov. 15 without Republican policy prescriptions, or listening to his conservatives, who will accept a government shutdown unless serious damage is done to the health-care law.

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AP

Speaking Friday at the White House after the Senate vote on a stopgap spending measure, President Barack Obama called on House Republicans to “pass a budget on time.”

“The House will take action that reflects the fundamental fact that Americans don’t want a government shutdown and they don’t want the train wreck that is Obamacare,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Boehner. “Grandstanding from the president, who refuses to even be a part of the process, won’t bring Congress any closer to a resolution.”

House Republicans will meet at 11 a.m. today and also be in session Sunday to hash out their options. Boehner has signaled that he will again attach language to chip away at the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but as the deadline approaches, fissures are appearing in the Republican ranks.

“The only time you shut down the government is when you shut it down and refuse to open it until you accomplish what you want. We’ll fold like hotcakes,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. “You do not take a hostage you are not going to for sure shoot, and we will not for sure shoot this hostage.”



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Republicans have a 232-200 majority in the House, meaning as few as 16 members can force the leadership to move their way by threatening to withhold their votes.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, said on CBS This Morning on Friday that “I have not seen” anything like the gridlock that has left the country facing the shutdown. “We are dividing the Republican Party rather than attacking Democrats,” he said

Conservatives warned that approval of the Senate legislation in the House could hurt Boehner dearly.

“I think it would be devastating to the speaker’s support,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., one of the members urging the Republican leadership to drive a hard bargain with the Senate.

There is little or no disagreement between the House and Senate over spending levels in the legislation now moving from one side of the Capitol to the other, and except for health care, passage might well be routine. The bill provides funds at an annual rate of slightly more than $986 billion, in keeping with an agreement Obama and Republicans made two years ago to restrain the growth of a wide swath of government spending from the Pentagon to the nation’s parks.

Without separate legislation to make further reductions, across-the-board cuts will automatically take effect early next year that will reduce the level to $967 billion, and Republicans are fond of pointing out that the government is on track to spend less on those programs for the second year in a row - for the first time since the Korean War.

But Republicans voted unanimously against the health-care law when it passed Congress, backed lawsuits to challenge its constitutionality, and some now seek to strangle it before its final implementation begins Tuesday.

“I think the question is: Do we go with the carrot or the stick strategy? Do we try to do something bad enough to force Harry Reid to negotiate with us, or do we do something that we think he can’t refuse?” Hudson said.

Cruz told reporters he had had numerous conversations with fellow conservatives in recent days, adding, “I am confident the House of Representatives will continue to stand its ground, continue to listen to the American people and … stop this train wreck, this nightmare that is Obamacare.”

OPTIONS ON TABLE

Republicans also were considering a simple bill to keep the government open for as little as seven days while the legislative jousting continues. That was opposed by senior Republicans, including Rep. Harold Rogers of Kentucky, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

“If you can’t get the House and Senate together by midnight Sept. 30, it becomes a more viable strategy,” said Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, a close ally of Boehner’s.

Reid has said he would reject anything but a plain budget bill.

“This is the only legislation that can avert a government shutdown,” Reid said. “House Republicans should think long and hard about what’s at stake and who would be hurt by a government shutdown.”

By Friday, most House Republicans had come around to the view of their leadership: that a government shutdown would be painful for their party from a political and public relations standpoint. Many said they would consider voting for a stop-gap-spending measure covering as few as seven days to keep the government funded as they struggle to come up with a more long-term solution.

“Listen, I’m not going to let the government shut down,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. “I don’t want to be undercutting Boehner, but put it this way: I will not let the government shut down.”

But House Republicans thought they might be able to find a compromise with Senate Democrats - including, they said, on some more modest changes to the president’s health-care law, or in exchange for approval of Republican priorities like the Keystone XL pipeline.

“I’d love to see a medical device repeal, whether it’s Keystone, even a delay in the individual mandate,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., referring to a tax on medical-device manufacturers. “Look, I think the administration realizes that Obamacare is not ready for prime time, and so I think ultimately maybe they’d be amenable to it.”

At least 60 lawmakers also support a proposal from Rep. Tom Graves, R-Georgia, to attach a one-year delay to the House’s next spending bill. They argue that it’s akin to the delay the administration provided for the requirement that employers provide health insurance.

“The argument to me is so simple, so basic: Treat all of America, Mr. President, like you treat big business,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

OBAMA: WON’T BUDGE

After the short-term budget debate will be what Boehner promised would be a “whale of a fight” on raising the debt limit. The government won’t be able to pay all its bills by the end of October without an increase, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In a letter to lawmakers Friday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups urged Congress to keep the government open and raise the debt limit, and then “return to work on these other vital issues,” including entitlement spending.

Obama reiterated his refusal to negotiate on the debt ceiling.

“It would have a profound destabilizing effect on the entire economy - on the world economy, because America is the bedrock of world investment,” he said. “Voting for the Treasury to pay America’s bills is not a concession to me. That’s not doing me a favor. That’s simply carrying out the solemn responsibilities that come with holding office up there.” Information for this article was contributed by Jonathan Weisman, Ashley Parker and Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times; by Roxana Tiron, Richard Rubin, Michael C. Bender, Kathleen Hunter, Peter Cook and Roger Runningen of Bloomberg News; and by David Espo,Andrew Taylor and Donna Cassata of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/28/2013

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