House Republican leaders said they will try to force the Democratic-led Senate to vote on defunding President Barack Obama’s health-care law before the House will agree to enact a stopgap government-funding measure.
“Our goal here is not to shut down the government,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters in Washington today. “Our goal is to cut spending and to stop Obamacare.”
Boehner said he wants to send a bill eliminating funds for the health-care law to the Senate and “force them to actually have a vote on getting rid of Obamacare.”
Second-ranking Senate Democrat Richard Durbin of Illinois dismissed the strategy.
“This will be the 41st, I believe, futile House vote on Obamacare,” Durbin said in an interview at the Capitol. “The speaker obviously thinks that it serves his purposes within his caucus, but it’s clearly a non-starter in the Senate.”
The House leaders’ plan also hasn’t received the backing of rank-and-file House Republicans, many of whom want a binding measure to eliminate money for the Affordable Care Act. The House plan would allow a short-term spending bill to be enacted even if the Senate voted not to strip health-care funds.
“The House plan is a gimmick that leaves defunding Obamacare in the hands of the Democrat-controlled Senate, and I will not support it,” Representative Blake Farenthold, a Texas Republican, said in a statement. “I committed to my constituents to go all in on defunding the Obamacare train wreck.”
Leaders Meeting
Congressional leaders of both parties plan to meet Sept. 12 to discuss government finances and the U.S. debt ceiling. Congress must enact a spending measure to keep the government operating beyond the end of September. The U.S. is projected to reach its debt limit as early as mid-October.
The House has voted 40 times to repeal, delay or defund all or part of the health-care law. The Senate has refused to take up almost all of those measures. The 2010 health-care law, upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, is designed to expand coverage to at least 30 million people.
Representative Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, said party leaders will be assessing members’ support of the plan to pair the health-care and spending-bill votes. Rogers, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he supports the strategy because it satisfies members’ needs for up-or-down votes on both measures.
‘We’ll See’
Asked whether it would have enough support to pass, Rogers said, “we’ll see.”
Representative Peter Roskam, an Illinois Republican and chief deputy whip, said in an interview that there is a “lot of interest” in the leaders’ strategy and that members are “open to learning” about it.
Several Republicans expressed opposition because they said they see the strategy as non-binding.
“Every member of the conference said they’re going to do everything they can to defund Obamacare, and our leadership said in there they know this strategy will not defund Obamacare,” Representative Tim Huelskamp, a Kansas Republican, said in an interview.
Georgia Republican Paul Broun said in a statement he opposed the plan, calling it “another legislative trick that will be easily defeated by the Senate, leaving us with little leverage when it comes to defunding Obamacare.”
No Compromise
The White House and lawmakers in Congress haven’t come up with a compromise to keep the government running and avoid a rerun of previous showdowns over the debt limit.
The U.S. will lack enough money to pay its bills sometime between Oct. 18 and Nov. 5, according to a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis released today. At the end of August, the U.S. had another $108 billion in so-called extraordinary measures, such as not reinvesting certain employee retirement payments, available to cover spending in excess of revenue.
The volatility of tax revenue makes it difficult to predict the exact date the government won’t be able to pay its bills, the center’s report said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Boehner, an Ohio Republican, requesting the Sept. 12 meeting with all four leaders, according to a congressional aide who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly because the letter wasn’t released. The two will meet with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, aides said.
Avoiding Default
White House officials and House Republicans have said they are determined not to allow a default on U.S. government debt.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in an Aug. 26 letter to Boehner that the government would exhaust borrowing authority in mid-October. At that point the government would have about $50 billion in remaining cash that would be “insufficient to cover net expenditures for an extended period of time,” Lew wrote.
The government must make 80 million payments each month to Social Security recipients and military personnel as well as for other obligations such as Medicare reimbursements to doctors and hospitals, Lew said.
The 80 House Republicans who urged their leaders to support defunding the health-care law are short of a “majority of the majority” that is usually the benchmark for consensus among the chamber’s 233 Republicans.
A vote on the temporary spending legislation is set for later this week, according to a legislative schedule posted on Cantor’s website. The legislation hasn’t been officially filed for members to review in order to have a vote on Sept. 12. The House isn’t scheduled to be in session the following day.
To contact the reporters on this story: Roxana Tiron in Washington at rtiron@bloomberg.net; Kathleen Hunter in Washington at khunter9@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jodi Schneider at jschneider50@bloomberg.net
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, said he wants to send a bill eliminating funds for the health-care law to the Senate and “force them to actually have a vote on getting rid of Obamacare.”
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, said he wants to send a bill eliminating funds for the health-care law to the Senate and “force them to actually have a vote on getting rid of Obamacare.” Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images
10:40
Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- House Speaker John Boehner speaks about the Syrian regime's alleged use of chemical weapons and a possible U.S. military response. Boehner also discusses President Barack Obama's health-care law and budget negotiations. U.S. Republican Representatives Eric Cantor of Virginia, Jeb Hensarling of Texas and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington also participate in the news conference in Washington. (Source: Bloomberg)
12:31
Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Peter Orszag, vice chairman of corporate and investment banking at Citigroup Inc. and former director of the Office of Management and Budget, talks about the U.S. debt ceiling debate and the labor market. Orszag, speaking with Tom Keene, Sara Eisen, Betty Liu and Alix Steel on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance," also discusses U.S. health-care legislation and Federal Reserve policy. (Peter Orszag is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. Source: Bloomberg)
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