Government shutdown looms after senate blocks short-term funding bill

Teni Sow | September 23, 2011 | 0 Comments

WASHINGTON – The Senate on Friday rejected a House-passed measure to keep the government funded past Sept. 30, signaling that Senate Democrats are ready for an eleventh-hour fight with House Republicans over billions of dollars in disaster aid in the bill.

By a vote of 59 to 36, the Senate tabled the $1.043 trillion resolution aimed at funding the government from Oct. 1 through Nov. 18. Congress has to send some kind of temporary funding measure to the president’s desk by Sept. 30 or the government will shut down.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had been vowing to block the House bill, which passed at 1 a.m. on Friday, because of its language on disaster relief. House Republicans want to cut $1.5 billion from an Energy Department clean car fund to pay for disaster aid. But the Senate has already passed its own $6.9 billion disaster relief package, without offsets, and Democrats have balked at the idea of having to match emergency aid with cuts — especially cuts from a program they like.

Immediately after the vote to block the funding bill, Reid set up a new vote for Monday at 5:30 p.m. to begin debate on a modified version of the House bill that Senate Democrats could support. It would make one key change: No offsets for disaster aid.

Reid’s move means the House and Senate don’t get to go into recess next week as planned — something the House was hoping to avoid as they were racing to leave town Friday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pressed Reid to hold the vote Friday and not “squander the next few days on an agreement we know we have to reach.”

But Reid declined, saying he wanted House and Senate party leaders to huddle over the weekend and reach a bipartisan way forward.

“Everyone once in a while needs a little cooling off period,” Reid said. “I would hope over the weekend the four leaders could lead their troops in the right direction.”

Just before the vote, House Republican leaders railed against Senate Democrats for planning to reject their bill, saying it would be Democrats fault if the Federal Emergency Management Administration runs out of money, which could happen as soon as Monday.

“We passed a responsible bill,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said during a Capitol Hill press conference. “It’s time for the Senate to move the House passed bill.”

He also said the Senate was breaking its word by killing the House version of the legislation.

“This bill was put together in a bipartisan way with House and Senate leaders, and just because someone decided to change their mind and walk away from an understanding about how we’re going to proceed certainly does not make it right,” Boehner said.

Reid’s office did not immediately respond to Boehner’s charge.

Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) repeatedly accused Senate Democrats of playing political games at the expense of disaster victims, even though the Senate has already passed a much larger $6.9 billion disaster package.

It will “be on Harry Reid’s shoulders” if FEMA doesn’t get its disaster aid next week, Cantor said.

But the House bill faces bipartisan opposition in the Senate. Several Senate Republicans unhappy with the disaster aid language voted with Democrats to table the House measure: Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Mike Lee (Utah), Rand Paul (Ky.), Jim Risch (Idaho), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Pat Toomey (Pa.).

Only one Senate Democrat supported the House bill: Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).

Despite having no path forward, both Boehner and Reid reiterated that there will be no government shutdown next week and FEMA will gets the money it needs in time.

“The government is not shutting down,” Reid said. “I talked to [FEMA administrator Craig] Fugate. FEMA’s not running out of money.”

Make Current

RedditStumbleUponDeliciousTumblrDiggBlogger PostMister-WongLinkedInShare

Related posts:

  1. Government Shutdown Looms: House Rejects Short-Term Budget Bill
  2. House passes funding bill, set to die in senate
  3. Harry Reid calls Tom Coburn ‘a dictator’ for blocking bill that would prevent FAA shutdown
  4. FAA Shutdown Averted: House, Senate Leaders Reach Deal To Avert Shutdown Of Federal Highway And Aviation Programs
  5. FAA shutdown: bill to avert another shutdown passes house

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Category: Politics

Comments (0)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

There are no comments yet. Why not be the first to speak your mind.

Leave a Reply

«
»
Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com