3 days from shutdown, Senate passes stopgap bill

Susan Davis | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved 54-44 Friday a stopgap spending bill through mid-November to head off a government shutdown in three days, but the legislation inflamed Republicans because it stripped out a provision to defund President Obama's health care law.

President Obama responded with a message to Congress Friday: "Knock it off," he said at a news briefing at the White House where he called on House Republicans to approve the Senate short-term bill and reiterated that he will oppose any effort to dismantle his signature domestic achievement.

"That's not going to happen," he said.

The vote sets Congress up for a rare weekend battle to resolve the impasse before Tuesday, or face the first shutdown in 17 years. Senate conservatives pledged to keep up their efforts to dismantle the law. "This vote is not the end. It's not even the beginning of the end," said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he will not accept a "clean" funding bill and intends to amend it and send it back to the Senate by Monday. However, House Republicans are unsure how, exactly, to respond. The House adjourned Friday but is scheduled to be in session over the weekend. House Republicans will huddle Saturday afternoon to determine their next moves.

There is "uncertainty in their own caucus," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday, "I don't think we know what we'll be voting on from what minute to the next, because I don't think they know what we'll be voting on from one moment to the next."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., warned Republicans that the only way to avoid a shutdown was to approve the Senate bill. "This is it. Time is gone. Our rules are different than the House," said Reid. The Senate could take five to six days to approve another stopgap bill if the House returns a bill that again defunds Obamacare, or in anyway dismantles the law.

Further fueling fears of a shutdown was Reid's acknowledgment that he is not communicating with Boehner. In previous budget clashes, behind-the-scenes negotiations were underway. "We've made it very clear that the only way to solve this problem is just accept what we've done, just accept it," Reid said.

Most of the public would not feel the effects of a shutdown immediately. Government operations considered essential, like mail delivery, air traffic control, and Social Security and Medicare, would continue unabated, but national parks and museums would close. Certain government employees would not get paid, but they would receive back pay when the government re-opens. A short-term shutdown is unlikely to cause much long-term economic damage unless it drags on for a longer period of time.

Republicans are divided on the best way to proceed, but they are under significant pressure from conservatives and their outside group allies to again demand concessions on the health care law. "In my view, what's critical is the House passes a measure to protect the American people from the harm Obamcare is causing," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told reporters.

Cruz led a historic, filibuster-style speech in opposition to the healthcare law this week, and he has been a leading conservative voice on Capitol Hill for using budget deadlines as leverage to dismantle the law. Cruz's tactics have been criticized by Senate GOP colleagues including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn.,as politically perilous for the party.

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., said House Republicans were debating a number of alternatives to the Senate funding bill but said as of Friday, the next steps were murky. "To be honest with you, I don't know," he said. "We haven't coalesced around a consensus yet."

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., who is charged with drafting the spending bill, said he was awaiting a decision from GOP leaders. "I'd be open to whatever leadership thinks we should do," he said.

House Republicans are also working to put together a legislative package tied to an impending vote to raise the debt ceiling, the nation's borrowing limit, that will hit Oct. 17, according to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. The bill would suspend the debt ceiling through the 2014 elections in exchange for a one-year delay of implementation of the health care law and instructions on how to overhaul the federal tax code without raising additional revenue.

The package also includes a grab-bag of perennially popular GOP legislation that is unpalatable to Democrats, such as construction of a new oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, and increasing means testing for Medicaid recipients. Republican leaders initially plan to vote on the package over the weekend, but the vote was delayed in order to build GOP support for the plan and to resolve the stopgap spending bill first.

President Obama has maintained that he will veto any legislation that seeks to delay or defund his signature domestic achievement, and Democrats have vowed not to negotiate over the debt ceiling. There is no precedent for a U.S. debt limit default, but there is consensus that it could have sweeping, negative consequences for the U.S. economy.

"We don't fully understand, the dangers involved, because no Congress has ever threatened default," Obama said Friday, warning it would have a "profound destabilizing affect" on the economy.