WASHINGTON - What's next? On Friday, the GOP-led House voted 230 to 180 for a stop-gap spending bill that funds the government for 75 days, but strips funding for President Barack Obama's health overhaul legislation. It sets up a fight with the Democratic controlled Senate and the president that could lead to a government shutdown. The House votes came...
WASHINGTON - What's next? On Friday, the GOP-led House voted 230 to 180 for a stop-gap spending bill that funds the government for 75 days, but strips funding for President Barack Obama's health overhaul legislation. It sets up a fight with the Democratic controlled Senate and the president that could lead to a government shutdown.
The House votes came just 10 days before the federal government runs out of money.
Initially, Louisiana Republicans hoped the bill would include language blocking FEMA from implementing rate increases resulting from a 2012 reform law. Now, aides to Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, said they will seek to include the language, intended to block implementation of the rate increases for the next funding bill, in a subsequent funding bill expected to cover the remainder of the 2014 fiscal year.
Republicans aren't saying what they'll do if their spending bill comes back from the Senate without the defunding of ObamaCare, but are already laying out an even more contentious agenda for legislation needed next month to extend the nation's debt limit.
"There's going to be a whole tree of things to debate, discuss and negotiate," said Rep. John Fleming, R-Minden, one of the conservative lawmakers who pushed House Speaker John Boehner into a fight over ObamaCare he wanted to avoid. Already being written into Republican debt extension legislation is defunding of ObamaCare for a full year, a reversal of environmental regulations on coal ash and industrial boilers, and a measure paving the way for construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Louisiana.
Fleming contends that, if only Democrats will negotiate, an agreement can be reached. For example, he said, the president and Democrats want to reverse cuts in domestic programs under the budget sequester while Republicans want to revere in military funding.
"There's an opportunity to compromise on that, especially if we save money by barring funding for ObamaCare," Fleming said.
Fleming said President Obama may ultimately feel "Republicans are doing him a favor" by insisting on a one-year delay in the Affordable Care because the plan, as he sees it, is badly flawed and not ready for implementation.
Democrats said Republicans are threatening a government takeover over an issue that was settled in the last presidential election when Obama won while campaigning on the benefits of the new law over a GOP opponent who vowed to repeal it.
It would be cynical, and unfair, Democrats say, to delay the Affordable Care Act just as millions of uninsured Americans are ready Oct 1 to begin shopping for insurance from the law's exchanges. There, they can compare plans, purchase overage, even with pre-existing conditions, and, if they meet income standards, qualify for government subsidies.
"I couldn't get to the floor fast enough to vote against this bill," said Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans. "It isn't going to see the light of day in the Senate and it is just more political gamesmanship that is just so unfortunate when Americans want us to solve problems."
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor gave credit to Rep. Scalise, chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee, for helping draft the bill.
"Today's vote is another step towards ensuring we properly fund government while defunding and delaying the President's health care law and preventing a default on our nation's debts," Scalise said. "Taking swift action towards these goals is vital to the economic future of our nation. It's now time for Senate conservatives to stand tall and unite their conference in this fight to protect American families from the devastating train wreck that is President Obama's health care law."
Scalise added an amended version of the House's previously drafted Faith and Credit Act to the spending bill to assure, in his words, the government can continue to pay its debts - even without a debt limit extension vote. But House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., referred to it derisively as the "pay China first," approach, one that would put recipients of government assistance in the back of the line behind U.S. creditors.
Fleming said he hasn't given up entirely on the Senate approving the Republican spending plan, including the defunding of ObamaCare, saying some Democratic senators up for re-election represent states where the health law is unpopular. He cited Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., as such a lawmaker. Cantor, the Republican majority leader, also mentioned Landrieu and other Democratic moderates at a post-vote GOP rally, saying they face a tough decision next week on the GOP defund effort.
Landrieu said her position remains firm.
"I just think we need to keep the government operating," Landrieu said. "It will be very damaging to the economy, to jobs in Louisiana, should the Tea Party push us off the cliff because of their relentless, senseless and reckless push to repeal a law that has been passed, and held up by the Supreme Court, and is being implemented in majority states in America."
Cantor sees the defund effort as a good political move for the GOP, but Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's political advisor, said independent voters will blame Republicans if the government is shutdown.
Friday's House debate on the stop-gap spending bill was contentious, bitter, and partisan.
"The House has listened to the American people," Speaker Boehner said to cheers from some of the same House Republicans who were rebelling against his call for a "clean," non-controversial, spending bill just a week earlier. "Now it's time for the United States Senate to listen to them as well,"
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called the bill irresponsible.
'We are not here to expand government, but we are not here to eliminate government," Pelosi said. "If the idea is to limit government, let's work together to do that. But what brought us to the floor today is without a doubt, without a doubt, a measure designed to shut down government. It could have no other intent."