Blame game intensifies as US govt shutdown looms
A tumultuous US House votes late Saturday on a Republican plan that keeps government open but is unlikely to pass the Senate, leading lawmakers to bicker over who is responsible for a likely shutdown.
Barely two days before a shutdown deadline, Republican leaders set off a political firestorm when they announced that their stopgap federal spending bill also aims to delay implementation of President Barack Obama's health care law by one year.
The move prompted a sharp rebuke from the White House, which warned it was a step toward shuttering federal agencies once the fiscal year ends Monday night, and vowed to veto any such bill.
House Speaker John Boehner convened a rare Saturday session as Congress struggles to break a funding impasse that, if unresolved, would require hundreds of thousands of federal workers to stay home.
In addition, more than a million US military personnel would remain on duty -- but with no pay.
Under pressure from his party's far-right conservative wing, Boehner doubled down on his caucus's bid to stop Obama's signature domestic achievement, the health care law, vowing to send a bill back to the Senate but with little time for legislative action to avoid a shutdown.
"We will do our job and send this bill over, and then it's up to the Senate to pass it and stop a government shutdown," Boehner said.
The House had earlier passed a temporary budget bill known as a continuing resolution that included a provision defunding so-called Obamacare altogether.
The Democratic-led Senate stripped that part out and sent a clean budget back to the House.
But instead of passing it, the House plans to amend the bill with a one-year delay of the health care law and repeal of an unpopular medical device tax.
While conservative lawmakers hailed the move, the White House slammed it.
"Any member of the Republican Party who votes for this bill is voting for a shutdown," spokesman Jay Carney said.
In a separate statement, the White House Office of Management and Budget warned that Obama "would veto the bill" if it reached his desk.
A furious Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, attacked the move as "pointless" brinkmanship that could end in economic crisis.
"To be absolutely clear, the Senate will reject both the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of the medical device tax," Reid said.
"The American people will not be extorted by Tea Party anarchists."
Driving the point home, a Senate Democratic aide told AFP. it was "highly unlikely" the chamber would be in session before Monday.
Given the Senate's likely rejection of the House bill in the waning hours of the fiscal year, a Republican aide acknowledged that a temporary shutdown was the likeliest scenario.
House Democrats, largely powerless to prevent passage of Republican legislation in the lower chamber, expressed worry that the US government would suffer the same fate as a Washington deadlock in late 1995 that resulted in a 21-day work stop.
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