all4one an update from the wall street journal...shut down looks imminent...2pm today...if this happens will be interesting tonight the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq...and this only to raise the debt ceiling which will only last a short while.
Shutdown Nears as Lawmakers Volley
WASHINGTON—Senate Democrats quickly rejected the latest House Republican plan to delay part of the health-care law and keep the government running as Congress edged the U.S. closer to its first government shutdown in almost 20 years.
By a 54-46 party-line vote, the Senate killed a proposal that would have kept the federal government operating into the new fiscal year, which begins Tuesday, and delayed the 2010 federal health-care law's individual insurance mandate. The move extends a partisan standoff between the GOP-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The short-term spending bill, to fund the government until Dec. 15, now heads back to the House, where Republican leaders must decide the next move. The measure was approved by the House earlier in the evening on a 228-201 vote. It would have kept the government funded for the first few weeks of the fiscal year. In addition to the health law delay, the bill would have limited government subsidies for lawmakers' own health-care premiums and those of their staffs.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) in a floor speech ahead of the vote called on Republicans to quit sending provisions to the Senate that would gut parts of the health law. "They've lost their minds. They keep trying to do the same thing over and over again," Mr. Reid said of House Republicans.
House Republicans maintain they are fighting to shield Americans from the "unknown consequences and unknown damages" of the health-care law. "The American people don't want a shutdown and neither do I," said House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) in a fiery speech on the House floor.
President Barack Obama, speaking from the White House Monday, had urged Republicans to back away from their plan, asking them to meet with him at another time to negotiate budget differences. "We should avoid this constant brinkmanship,'' Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Obama said it was a basic function of Congress to fund the government each year. "You don't extract a ransom for doing your job,'' he said.
A White House official said that Mr. Obama placed separate calls Monday evening to Mr. Boehner, as well as to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
The showdown has laid bare the elements of the political system that have done much to alienate voters, highlighting the continual air of crisis that has come to surround the most routine tasks of governing. The convoluted jockeying on Capitol Hill has been over a seemingly simple budget measure—a short extension of money for agencies at their current funding levels.
Republican lawmakers decided to pursue their new funding proposal in a 90-minute meeting of the House GOP on Monday afternoon. Afterward, Mr. Boehner began moving toward the Monday night vote, just a few hours before the government was to run out of money at 12:01 a.m. EDT, the start of the new fiscal year.
But many GOP lawmakers said the measure didn't do enough to curb the health law; others were concerned about the provision limiting government contributions to health-care costs for lawmakers, aides and some White House officials.
Some also had reservations about the strategy of risking a government shutdown to demand changes in the health-care law that Mr. Obama and fellow Democrats were sure to reject.
"It is moronic to shut down the government over this," said Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.).
Even before the new move was advanced, some Republicans were urging GOP leaders to drop the fight over the spending bill. Mr. McConnell (R., Ky.) floated among his colleagues the idea of passing a simple, one-week spending bill to keep the government open and allow time to devise a spending compromise.
WSJ's Damian Paletta answers the burning questions about whether Congress is going to allow a government shutdown, including what the impact might be and how long it might last.
"We have tried robustly on the spending bill, and it hasn't borne fruit," said Rep. Doug Lamborn (R., Colo.). He said the GOP could use other tactics to fight the health law, but "for this week, we may have to give up."
House Republicans decided to launch one more volley to the Senate in the spending fight after the Senate on Monday afternoon voted along party lines to reject the GOP's prior proposal—a plan to fund the government through Dec. 15 that was linked to a one-year delay in the entire health-care law and repeal of a tax on medical devices. The Senate vote was 54-46, sending the funding issue back to the House.
A shutdown would prompt federal agencies to suspend a large range of activities and furlough more than 800,000 of the U.S. government's roughly 2.9 million workers, according to plans filed with the White House. However, much of the public would be unaffected. National-security activities, air traffic, postal service, law enforcement and other functions deemed essential would continue.
The battle over government funding took place on the eve of the launch Tuesday of a major part of the health law—the marketplaces allowing individuals to buy health-insurance policies.
The tea party and other conservatives have for months pressured congressional Republicans to try to undercut the law before that milestone was passed, and they have argued that Monday's deadline for funding the government offered the best opportunity to advance their cause. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) led the unsuccessful fight in the Senate to pass the House's initial legislation to eliminate money for the health law while funding the rest of the government.
Mr. Boehner had initially devised a strategy for sidestepping that fight now in order to avoid risking a government shutdown. But House conservatives, working in concert with Mr. Cruz, foiled that strategy and have kept up the pressure on the GOP to fight until the last minute.
GOP unity splintered over Mr. Boehner's latest move—over both its strategy and substance. The Club for Growth, an influential conservative group, endorsed the bill to delay the insurance mandate and to cut congressional premium subsidies. The group said it would consider lawmakers' votes on the matter when it assesses their conservative credentials in an annual scorecard.
The lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said it opposed the House GOP proposal, because it wouldn't do enough to curb the health law. But the group said its rankings of lawmakers wouldn't be based on whether they support the amendment.
Proponents of the bill presented it as a compromise with Mr. Obama's position, because it called only for a delay of the individual insurance mandate, not repeal of the whole health-care law. And they said that curbing subsidies for members of Congress, their staff and officials of the executive branch was a matter of "fairness.''
Some argued that the GOP needed to fight to the finish. "It's vitally important that we stick together," said Rep. John Culberson (R., Texas). "We're standing on principle.''
—Siobhan Hughes and Corey Boles contributed to this article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304373104579107051184641222.html?mod=WSJAsia_hpp_LEFTTopStories
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