BREAKING; US government shutdown

US begins government shutdown as budget deadline passes

The US government has begun a partial shutdown of many government services after the Republican-led House of Representatives refused to approve a budget for next year.

Radio New Zealand,

1 October, 2013

The midnight deadline for an agreement passed despite an 11th hour appeal by President Barack Obama.

Because no agreement was reached the government will close all non-essential federal services.

The partial shutdown is the first in the US in 17 years.

More than 700,000 federal government workers face being sent home on unpaid leave, with no guarantee of back pay once the deadlock is over.

Budget bills have gone back and forth between the Republican controlled House and the Democratic controlled Senate.

The BBC reports one of the key points of contention in the stalemate has been the healthcare law, known as Obamacare.

Republicans in the House of Representatives demand that the law be repealed or stripped of funding as a condition for continuing to fund the government.

Major portions of the law, which passed in 2010 and has been validated by the Supreme Court, are due to take effect on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a deadline of 17 October for extending the federal government's borrowing limit looms even larger.

Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that unless the United States is allowed to extend its borrowing limit, the federal government would be left with about $US30 billion to meet its commitments.

Washington faced a similar impasse over the debt ceiling in 2011, but a compromise was reached

US government begins shutdown after Congress debates end in stalemate

Recriminations fly as Republican rancour over Obamacare leads to first federal shutdown in two decades

The Guardian,

1 October, 2013

The US government was forced to begin closing swathes of non-essential services on Tuesday morning after frantic rounds of late night political sparring failed to avert the first federal shutdown in nearly two decades.

As a midnight deadline to extend Congressional spending authority ticked ever closer, Republicans staged a series of last-ditch efforts to use a once-routine budget procedure to force Democrats to abandon their efforts to extend US health insurance.

Three separate attacks on the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, were staged by the House of Representatives, only to be rejected in turn by the Democrat-controlled Senate, which accused Republicans of holding the country to ransom.

Shortly before midnight, Senate majority leader Harry Reid marked the end of the process by rejecting House calls for formal talks to reconcile their conflicting positions, arguing it was impossible to negotiate with a “gun to our heads”.

“This is a very serious time in the history of our country,” Reid said. “Millions of people are going to be affected tomorrow and the Republicans are still playing games”

An estimated 800,000 federal workers will be forced to stay at home from Tuesday under a stalemate that could drag on for days and disrupt services as varied as national parks and the US space programme.

The White House has drawn up a list of essential staff who are legally allowed to carry on working, but President Barack Obama warned that a shutdown would have an immediate affect on the fragile US economy.

“We do not have a clear indication that Congress will act in time for the president to sign a Continuing Resolution before the end of the day tomorrow, October 1,” said a White House statement issued shortly before midnight.

“Therefore, agencies should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations. We urge Congress to act quickly to pass a Continuing Resolution to provide a short-term bridge that ensures sufficient time to pass a budget for the remainder of the fiscal year, and to restore the operation of critical public services and programs that will be impacted by a lapse in appropriations.”

Obama also issued a statement to military employees after signing a Republican-proposed law that exempts active-duty servicemen from the effects of the shutdown, but will not protect civilian workers.

“I know the days ahead could mean more uncertainty, including possible furloughs,” Obama said. “You and your families deserve better than the dysfunction we’re seeing in Congress.”

House speaker John Boehner denied that Republican tactics were responsible for the shutdown, insisting Democrats were to blame for refusing to negotiate over Obamacare.

“I didn't come here to shut down the government,” Boehner told one of several heated House debates.

“I came here to fight for a smaller, less costly and more accountable federal government. But here we find ourselves in this moment dealing with a law that’s causing unknown consequences and unknown damage to the American people and to our economy. And that issue is Obamacare.”

But Democrats are confident that US public opinion will continue to hold Republicans to blame for what could be days of disruption until a deal can be struck.

They argue that Republicans are using underhand methods to overturn a law that was passed four years ago, ratified by the supreme court and endorsed by voters at the last presidential election.

Senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, said: “If we surrender to hostage-taking tonight, these guys would be back within a couple of weeks without a shadow of a doubt. What we are dealing with tonight is an extraordinary anti-democratic act.” 

US government shutdown: LIVE UPDATES

RT

1 October, 2013

Tuesday, October 1

GMT 04:05: Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced a Senate recess until 13:30 GMT Tuesday.

GMT 04:00: The House and Senate could not come to a deal to fund federal agencies ahead of the 04:00 GMT deadline, effectively beginning the first shutdown of the US government in 17 years. 

The Office of Management and Budget has ordered federal agencies to "now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations.”

GMT 03:45: House minority leader Nancy Pelosi addressed reporters at a press conference, calling the inability to pass a continuing resolution to fund government the “Tea Party government shutdown.” 

"I'd like to say good evening," said Pelosi, "but it isn't a very good one." 

Earlier on Monday Rep. Pelosi had offered a “compromise” with Republican Speaker John Boehner to secure the needed Democrat votes to pass a bill that set spending at sequestration levels, a proposition opposed by many in her caucus, including Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

GMT 03:03: Senator Reid called a Republican House plan to call for a conference “subterfuge” and refused such a motion until the GOP presented a “clean” continuing resolution, meaning a bill to fund government without any modifications calling for changes to Obamacare. 

According to The Hill, a conference committee would allow “members of both chambers to meet face to face to decide how to move forward on a spending bill, instead of the ‘ping-pong’ back and forth that has taken several days and yielded nothing.”

GMT 02:49: Senior Republican John McCain indicated that House Republicans should present a clean bill to continue funding government, telling reporters that "Republicans will be perceived as blocking and as shutting down the government."

"We can't win," McCain said to press ahead of a likely government shutdown. A clean continuing resolution to fund government "will happen sooner or later" added McCain.

GMT 02:40: The Washington Post reports House Republicans will not attempt to pass any more bills to fund federal agencies ahead of the 04:00 GMT deadline, marking the first government shutdown since 1996.

GMT 02:20: President Obama signed legislation on Monday evening to ensure that military personnel would continue to receive pay during a government shutdown. 

GMT 02:05: The House was thought to be working on a fourth CR to present to the Senate prior to the midnight shutdown deadline.

GMT 01:41: The US Senate has voted down the House Continuing Resolution that proposed to keep the government open while delaying the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate implementation, along with eliminating health insurance subsidies for Congress members and their members of staff.

The House passed the CR earlier Monday evening by a vote of 228-201 demanding a one-year delay in the health care law’s mandate that individuals buy health insurance. The Senate rejected that House motion by 54-46 votes

The continuing resolution -- defeated just hours before the midnight deadline to pass a short-term budget bill -- also denied the law’s federal subsidies to members of Congress, Capitol Hill staff, executive branch appointees, White House staff, the president and the vice president, who have to enter the law’s insurance exchanges instead. 

OMB shutdown memo