House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and other Republicans are shifting their strategy in talks on avoiding a U.S. government shutdown, seeking to delay instead of defund President Barack Obama’s health-care law.
The Republican priority “is first and foremost a delay of Obamacare,” Cantor of Virginia said on the House floor today.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, immediately rejected the idea and said the House is on a track toward shutting down the government when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. Reid said he told House Speaker John Boehner in a meeting today that it’s “a waste of time” to meddle with the health-care law.
“Let’s stop these really juvenile political games,” Reid said.
Cantor, a Virginia Republican, told members today that the House may cancel a planned recess the week of Sept. 23 because of the negotiations on the spending measure.
Neither chamber has acted on legislation to finance the government for the 2014 fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The U.S. government is projected to reach its debt limit as early as mid-October. Reid today in Washington repeated Democrats’ call for a debt-limit increase with no added policy changes.
House Republican leaders are trying to avert a government shutdown while satisfying caucus members who are willing to risk a financial crisis to sidetrack the health-care measure passed during Obama’s first term.
‘Clean’ Measure
The Obama administration would consider a “clean” stopgap measure to fund the government at existing levels while budget negotiations continue, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters today. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California indicated that Democrats could vote for a short-term funding bill, a move that would give Boehner enough votes to keep the government running.
Yesterday, Boehner and Cantor postponed a vote on a spending plan opposed by dozens of their Republican members. The measure sought to force the Senate to vote on defunding Obama’s health-care law. Many members balked because the proposal would still have financed the government even if the Senate kept funds for the health-care law.
Other House members are talking about voting for postponement of the health law instead of trying to defund it.
Among them, Representative Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, said members realize that “we’re better off with a delay.” The talks are centered on how to “best” delay the law, he said today.
Leaders’ Meeting
Boehner and Reid met today with Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, to discuss financing the government and raising the debt ceiling.
“As we all know, the speaker has a problem: how to get the government funded,” Reid said later, adding that the Senate would wait for a proposal to come from the House before acting. “We will deal with whatever they send us.”
The Republicans’ ideas are “proposals to shut down the government,” Pelosi told reporters.
Representative Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, said delaying the health-care law would be a “good fallback” for the House spending-bill plan.
The Republican Study Committee, a group of lawmakers that promotes small government, yesterday discussed demanding a one-year delay in the health law in exchange for increasing the debt limit. Florida Republican Dennis Ross said a postponement would produce savings that could be used to cancel some of the automatic federal spending cuts that started in March.
Another Variation
Another variation floated by Louisiana Republican John C. Fleming would be to undo the automatic spending cuts in return for postponing the health-care law a year.
The spending bill “is going to have to change,” Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters yesterday. He said he is among 50 to 80 Republicans who want to stop funding for the Affordable Care Act and opposed their leaders’ plan.
Obama administration officials have repeatedly said the president won’t negotiate the terms of a debt-ceiling increase. White House Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell told Bloomberg Television on Aug. 23 that the administration is “not interested at all” in delaying the health law for a year.
The House has voted 40 times to repeal, postpone 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.
‘Better Place’
In a floor exchange with Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Cantor said he hoped Hoyer could persuade the administration to drop its refusal to consider a delay.
Republican Senator Johnny Isakson said today the stopgap spending bill is a “better place” than the debt limit for Republicans to wage their fight to postpone the health-care law. At a Bloomberg Government breakfast, Isakson predicted the partisan wrangling won’t lead to a government shutdown even as the Oct. 1 deadline nears.
The two-term senator said he was first elected to the House in a 1999 special election after the resignation of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican who forced a government shutdown in late 1995 and early 1996.
“I am not a fan of shutdowns,” Isakson said. “Having been a beneficiary once, I certainly don’t want to do that again.”
Boehner and Cantor needed the bulk of their fellow Republicans to support their earlier spending plan because Democrats opposed it. Hoyer of Maryland said this week he was urging colleagues not to vote for it.
Medicare, Medicaid
Pelosi said today that the House Republican spending bill would “wreak havoc” on Medicare and also would harm Medicaid and Meals on Wheels for senior citizens.
Boehner said earlier this week his goal was to “cut spending and to stop Obamacare,” not to shut down the government.
“We’ve got some time left here and conversations are taking place,” Representative Hal Rogers of Kentucky, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, told reporters yesterday. “It’s not time to panic.”
The Heritage Foundation, a Washington group that promotes limited government and is headed by former Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, is paying for a billboard being installed in New York City’s Times Square this week that reads, “Warning: Obamacare may be hazardous to your health.”
To contact the reporters on this story: James Rowley in Washington at jarowley@bloomberg.net; Kathleen Hunter in Washington at khunter9@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jodi Schneider at jschneider50@bloomberg.net
0 comments:
Post a Comment