The U.S. government braced today for the possibility of a partial shutdown of operations on Tuesday as Congress struggled to pass an emergency spending bill that Republicans want to use to defund the new healthcare reform law. While there was still a chance of averting a shutdown, time was running out. As expected, the Senate passed a straight-forward emergency-funding measure to keep the government running through Nov. 15. While 25 Republicans cooperated with Democrats to bring a week-long Senate debate to a close, in the end, no Republicans voted to pass the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said passing it would "send a message to radical Republicans" that they should stop standing in the way of operating the government by trying to first gut the U.S. healthcare law known as Obamacare. Meanwhile, business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged Congress to promptly pass the spending bill and raise the limit on government borrowing. A shutdown would likely result in up to 800,000 federal employees being furloughed. Most visible to the public, if past shutdowns are a guide, are museum closings in Washington that outrage tourists and attract television cameras, and possible delays in processing tax filings, for example. But the government does not grind to a halt. a halt. Large swaths of "essential" activity continue, including benefit checks and national security-related operations. Agencies were in the process of determining which employees would be considered essential and which not.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 19:15:08 +0000
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