To the president's desk: House, Senate pass bill to end shutdown ...
The House passed a bill 285-144 late Wednesday night to re-open the ... the Senate compromise is only a short-term deal allowing the federal ...
To the president's desk: House, Senate pass bill to end shutdown standoff
Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA
Lawmakers
work to pass a bill that would end the first government shutdown in 17
years and prevent the government from defaulting on its debt.
After weeks of stalemate that shuttered the government for 16 days and brought the nation within hours of a key deadline to renew its borrowing authority, the standoff is finally over.
The House passed a bill 285-144 late Wednesday night to re-open the government and extend the debt ceiling until Feb. 7. That vote came hours after the Senate approved the measure 81-18.
In both chambers, only Republicans voted against the measure. In the House, 87 Republicans joined all Democrats to support it.
After the votes, Office of Management and Budget director Sylvia Mathews Burwell told federal employees to expect to return to work on Thursday morning.
After
a long and tedious process, the Senate compromise is only a short-term
deal allowing the federal government to operate through January 15, and
conservatives who fought to de-fund or delay Obamacare have had to
concede defeat. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.
In remarks at the White House after the Senate vote – but before the
House took up the measure – President Barack Obama said that he will
sign the bill as soon as it arrives on his desk and that the government
will begin re-opening "immediately."“There’s a lot of work ahead of us, including our need to earn back the trust of the American people that’s been lost over the last few weeks,” he said. "And we can begin to do that by addressing the real issues that they care about."
After more than two weeks of standoff over the government shutdown, Republicans -- faced with Thursday’s debt ceiling deadline -- were forced to accept a deal with only minor concessions from Democrats.
That bill will fund the federal government through Jan. 15 and extend the government’s borrowing power, known as the debt ceiling, through Feb. 7. It also calls for an agreement by mid-December on a long-term budget plan.
Federal employees who were furloughed as a result of the shutdown will receive back pay "as soon as practicable," according to the bill's text.
After the Senate vote, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the occasion "a somber day," noting the effects of the shutdown on Americans.
"The bottom line is millions suffered. Millions didn’t get paychecks. The economy was dragged down, and confidence and faith in the United States' credit -- and in the United States itself around the world -- was shaken," he said.
The defeat for the GOP after both chambers spent days warring over competing budget proposals. An eleventh-hour GOP plan in the House collapsed late Tuesday night, leaving lawmakers with no option except to take up a compromise framework crafted by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, slammed fellow Republicans in the upper chamber for “directing their cannon fire” at conservatives in the House, who repeatedly rejected proposals that they said didn’t do enough to gut the president’s health care law.
“This is a terrible deal today,” Cruz said on the Senate floor. “This is a terrible deal for the American people.”
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a close ally of Cruz, argued that Republicans were right to fight the shutdown battle over opposition to Obamacare.
"Even if victory seemed difficult or impossible, that wouldn't excuse me or anyone else from doing the right thing," he said. "Avoiding difficult battles is, after all, how we ended up in this kind of mess.
Sen.
Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks on the chamber floor Wednesday evening to
oppose a plan to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling.
The
passage of the new temporary funding bill became clear earlier
Wednesday, when House Speaker John Boehner formally announced that
Republicans will not oppose the bill en masse.“The House has fought with everything it has to convince the president of the United States to engage in bipartisan negotiations aimed at addressing our country's debt and providing fairness for the American people under ObamaCare,” Boehner said in a statement. “That fight will continue. But blocking the bipartisan agreement reached today by the members of the Senate will not be a tactic for us.”
Boehner and other Republican lawmakers had come under pressure to reach an agreement as the impasse roiled stocks in recent days.
Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s estimated Wednesday that the shutdown “shaved at least 0.6% off of annualized fourth-quarter 2013 GDP growth.” That works out to a $24 billion bite out of the American economy, a number that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi cited on the House floor before the vote.
“My colleagues, do you think that your recklessness was worth $24 billion to our economy?” she said of Republicans in the House. “This recklessness is a luxury the American people cannot afford.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks to the media following an announcement on Capitol Hill that the Senate has reached a deal to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling.
The stock market, sensing an agreement, rallied Wednesday from the opening bell. The Dow Jones industrial average soared 205 points, and other indexes approached all-time highs.
Crucially, bond investors signaled they were less worried, too. Yields on short-term government debt, even loans coming due next week, fell sharply, a sign that investors felt surer that they would get their money back.
In he deal, Republicans failed to extract any major concessions on President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, as they had hoped, other than tighter scrutiny on who gets federal subsidies for insurance.
Earlier, Boehner told WLW radio in Ohio that conservatives fought for their principles but that the time had come to pass a bill with a majority in the House.
“We fought the good fight,” he said. “We just didn’t win.”
Republicans said that the 16-day ordeal offered lessons on how to approach future budget conflicts.
“I would hope that we learn from the past and employ different tactics and strategies that maybe would be more successful in the future,” said Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill.
Rep. Charlie Dent,-R-Pa., said the effects of the shutdown on the party could be long-lasting.
“Is there short term damage, yes.” He said. “Is there long term damage? We'll see.”
end quote from:
No comments:
Post a Comment