The arrival of a partial federal government shutdown Tuesday did not move the partisan battle lines drawn around the new health care law, as Congress appeared ready to merge this fight with one two weeks away over the federal borrowing limit.
In a Capitol depopulated of most staff and tourists, Democrats once again swatted away a House Republican legislative maneuver, this one designed to ease the effects of the shutdown.
Faced with the striking image of a group of World War II veterans struggling to get into their shuttered memorial a few blocks away, the House GOP attempted to pass short-term spending bills to fund the National Park Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs, while allowing the District of Columbia government to carry on as normal.
“We passed a bill to fund the entire government except for Obamacare; the Senate refused to take that up,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican. “So when there are items that can be identified that can gain broad support throughout the bipartisan Congress — the Veterans (Affairs Department) and the National Park Service — then it’s appropriate to move forward.”
Congress had unanimously agreed Monday to pay all active-duty military in the event of a shutdown, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would not be “nitpicked” in this instance when so many other key government functions, such as the Atlanta-based Centers For Disease Control and Prevention’s ability to track outbreaks, are diminished.
Reid vowed to cast the bills aside like previous Republican efforts, and President Barack Obama promised a veto. But Democrats blocked the bills in the House, where they needed a two-thirds vote to pass.
“We need to reopen the government, and the key to that still remains over in the House of Representatives,” Reid said. “It’s the Senate-passed ‘clean’ bill for the whole government. If the Republicans were serious, they would pass that bill. If they’re doing anything else, it’s just sour grapes.”
Reid also killed the House GOP idea to appoint a bicameral conference committee to negotiate a compromise. In the minds of Democrats, there is no negotiation to be had so long as Republicans insist on attaching delays or repeals of parts of the health care law to a government funding bill.
The eight Republican conferees included U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, a Ranger Republican who has led the charge to defund the Affordable Care Act as part of the deal to keep the government open. Suit jackets removed and binders before them, the eight gathered in front of television cameras in a conference room Tuesday to show their willingness to negotiate. There were no senators or Democrats to deal with.
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the House Budget Committee chairman, said if the Senate would allow it, the conference could lead to a long-term budget deal that includes an increase in the debt ceiling. The government is due to reach its borrowing limit Oct. 17, triggering an unprecedented and highly disruptive default.
“That’s what we think will be the forcing action to bring the two parties together,” Ryan said. “Our whole motivation here is to get a budget agreement and we think this is a way to do that. We want our colleagues to come here and work with us.”
Reid scoffed at the idea of a conference on a short-term spending bill, given that Republicans have blocked a budget conference for months. His unyielding roadblocks pique Republicans.
“Any time you’re communicating you’re better off,” said Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson. “That was the thing that surprised me a little bit about Harry Reid’s reaction to the conference.”
But Isakson added that Reid’s stance has left the GOP in a pickle.
The Democrats “appear to be united and they’ve got the votes,” he said. “It makes it hard to negotiate.”
Isakson said he hopes uniting the spending and debt ceiling fights will produce a new focus on the nation’s long-term problems and “structural entitlement reforms instead of health care.”
But House Republicans insist the two are intertwined.
U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, a Savannah Republican, said changes to the health law must be involved in any budget conversation, since expanding government-funded health insurance is expected to cost about $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years, though the law as a whole is expected to reduce the deficit because of its new taxes and Medicare cuts.
“We always have this tendency in Washington to say, ‘Well, we need to fight the battle, but not here and not now,’” Kingston said. “But the question is when? And so we’re at a situation where making some short-term sacrifice in order to save the nation and put it on fiscal solid ground, I think it’s something we’re going to have to make decisions about.”
An arch-conservative bloc led by Graves helped force House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to contest the health law amid a threat of a shutdown. Democrats and many Republicans still think a spending bill without preconditions will be the way out of the impasse — but it could take a while.
Augusta Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow voted for GOP-written spending bills that included a delay in the mandate that all individuals buy health insurance and a repeal of the health law’s tax on medical devices. But he said Republicans should bring a spending bill to the floor with no strings attached to reopen the government.
“It would take the pressure off of the federal civil service,” Barrow said. “Folks who aren’t the cause of all this, they’re paying the price for Congress’ failure to do its job.”
Members of Congress, whose pay is separate from the normal appropriations process, are among the federal employees who will get paid during the shutdown. But several lawmakers said they won’t take it.
Barrow and U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, a Gainesville Republican, plan to donate their pay to charity. U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, an Athens Republican, formally requested that his pay be withheld.
