Posted on 09/30/2013 11:07:46 PM PDT by Nachum
The federal government shut down for the first time in 17 years last night.
Lawmakers in the Democrat-controlled Senate and Republican-controlled Congress failed to pass a budget allowing for the federal government to continue to be funded as it headed into the new fiscal year at midnight.
Late night negotiations ended in deadlock after the Senate Democrats refused to consider any version of the budget that included changes to President Obama's signature health care law.
This lack of compromise means that nearly a million federal workers will go on unpaid leave until the two legislative bodies come to an agreement.
As the zero-hour drew closer on Monday, with other avenues exhausted, the White House's Office of Management and Budget told federal agencies that they 'should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations.'
House Republican leaders on the Rules Committee had discussed the procedures for both parties to appoint 'conferees' – negotiating representatives – for a joint House-Senate conference committee empowered to hash out a compromise of the budget battle that has consumed Washington for days.
The House GOP scrambled all day to avoid being the party without a chair when the shutdown music stops and the federal government moves to a new fiscal year without money to spend.
Republicans have been insisting that a Continuing Resolution funding the federal government – a 'CR,' in Capitol Hill-speak – must include language defunding, delaying or otherwise changing the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's signature health care legislation.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid had said hours earlier that House GOP members had 'lost their minds.' That barb followed the House's decision to send its third such budget proposal to the Senate – one that everyone in Washington understood would be dead on arrival.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Hmmmm... not quite clear on who isn't getting paid. Sorry... did you say gov't workers? Gov't workers in Washington, DC?
good
Oh noes! I wonder how long its going to take for mankind to repopulate the earth after the shutdown?
Nice! But I’m sure Obama will negate it all with an executive order that restores back pay and deny our bloated budget the much-needed savings.
BS!
Are those the same workers who are delinquent on their own Fed taxes and still have a job?
Gentlemen...start your violins!
Good.
I congratulate the house GOP on a rare stand.
This makes me happy.
Sadly, while many will be “furloughed”, in the end they will all get ALL of their pay back, so it will really end up being “paid vacation”.
But hey!! Zerocare will still be funded! Interesting, isn't that.
It’s a paid vacation for them. What about the millions of Americans who will not be compensated?
The gamble is that the news media will blast away from now until Sunday morning...with the Republicans in great fear by Sunday afternoon. Polls will say terrible things, and the Republicans will cave in by next Monday morning. At a minimum, it’s a continuing resolution deal, which means they gave up.
Well....here’s the sad truth. After crossing dozens of burning bridges, noting each was burning at the time....with this administration, the news media has conditioned us to expect little to nothing from each burning bridge. Sequestration wasn’t a big deal. Benghazi wasn’t a big deal. On and on.
By next Sunday evening....the Administration and the news media will stand there in shock....the majority of the public doesn’t really care about this burning bridge. They aren’t going to bring out the fire truck, block off traffic, or show up to watch the bridge burn to the ground.
Around Tuesday of next week....some Democratic Senators will be shaky over what has transpired and viewing their 2014 election races. They watched a fair number of their associates in the house and senate go in 2010 and 2012. By the end of next week....they won’t stand with Reid and this strategy anymore.
Sadly, if the news media hadn’t played all those burning bridge themes over the past four years....this would amount to something. But after dozens of these...we just aren’t very fearful of burning bridges anymore.
The final bill the republicans passed did NOT make any “changes” to Obamacare. It fully funded Obamacare, and the rest of the government.
It also tried to provide tax relief to people who couldn’t get health insurance (that is the practical result of “delaying the personal mandate”). Government is shut down because Democrats refused to provide tax relief to employees who were denied health care from their business by Obama’s illegal changing of the rules for the employer mandate.
Reid was in such a rush with his “power” that he got played, like the person who grabs the queen not realizing it is a gambit.
Now, the question is, do the republicans know what they have done, and can they do the messaging tomorrow.
Every republican tomorrow morning should be out asking why the democrats shut down government over tax relief.
I’m just going to cry myself to sleep tonight thinking about all those poor widdle federal workers.
I’m sorry but was there a forcible twisting of their arm or under duress that they were forced to become tax feeders?
They could have chosen a job in the private sector where productivity and hard work is valued and rewarded.
Is this something like telling Hobby Lobby to buy something that goes against the owners faith that in essence will cause the company to close and lay off 15,000 taxpayers? Or am I comparing apples to rotten fruit?
Anybody else get the impression that the media is blaming the Republicans 100% for this? I swear the media is so in the tank for Obama and Democrats. The media is covering this story in a manner in which they make sure to assess blame, rather than any “balanced” approach as to how we got in this situation, and how it can get resolved.
Remember, this is all a dress rehearsal for the debt ceiling debate coming later in October.
O H M Y G O D!
Can it be permanent?
Will Cupcake have to vacate the desecrated White Hut and go home?
Oh, well, that'll just be my daily Schadenfreude requirement.
Fantastic as long as it’s not retroactive like the last shutdown.
NO PAID VACATIONS!
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