The
House of Representatives will make another attempt Wednesday to pass
three emergency funding bills after each failed to obtain the required
two-thirds majority Tuesday.
The
House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday to
consider the three measures backed by House Republicans, which are aimed
at reopening parks and monuments, continuing veterans’ benefits and
allowing the municipal government of the District of Columbia to
function.
Unlike
on Tuesday, the latest bills will not be treated by House GOP leaders
as suspension bills, which means they only need a simple majority vote
to pass. On Tuesday, each measure needed 286 votes to pass. The parks
funding bill went down by a tally of 252 in favor to 176 against, the
veterans programs by 264 in favor to 164 against and the D.C. government
funding by 265 in favor to 163 against.
However,
even if the bills pass the House Wednesday, they are almost assuredly
doomed in the Senate, where Democrats suggested GOP House members had
picked high profile parts of the government to fund as a cover for their
part in forcing a government slowdown, while overlooking other critical
areas such as the National Institutes of Health.
"It
is time for Speaker Boehner to stop the games, think about the people
he is hurting, and let the House pass the Senate's bill to re-open the
government with Republican and Democratic votes," Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid said Tuesday night.
The White House has also rejected the bills in advance.
“The
president and the Senate have been clear that they won't accept this
kind of game-playing, and if these bills were to come to the president's
desk he would veto them," said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage.
"These piecemeal efforts are not serious and they are no way to run a
government.”
Mike
Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, fired back, “How does
the White House justify signing the troop funding bill, but vetoing
similar measures for veterans, National Parks, and District of
Columbia? The President can't continue to complain about the impact of
the government shutdown on veterans, visitors at National Parks, and DC
while vetoing bills to help them. The White House position is
unsustainably hypocritical."
The
two chambers tried in vain earlier to reach a budget resolution.
Shortly after midnight, the House endorsed an approach that delays the
federal health care law's individual mandate while prohibiting
lawmakers, their staff and top administration officials from getting
government subsidies for their health care. They formally urged the
Senate to form a conference committee -- a bicameral committee where
lawmakers from both chambers would meet to resolve the differences
between the warring pieces of legislation.
Meeting Tuesday morning, the Senate rejected the proposal, in a party-line, 54-46 vote.
Both
sides dug in, with Republicans insisting that any spending bill include
provisions to chip away at ObamaCare, and Democrats refusing to allow
it.
Both sides were hard at work blaming the other for the state of affairs.
"It's
time for Republicans to stop obsessing over old battles. I mean, I say
to my Republican friends, ObamaCare is over. It's passed, it's the law,"
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said.
President
Obama, speaking from the Rose Garden Tuesday afternoon, tried to put
pressure on Republicans to allow a "clean" budget bill.
"Republicans
in the House of Representatives refused to fund the government unless
we defunded or dismantled the Affordable Care Act. They've shut down the
government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health
insurance to millions of Americans. In other words they demanded ransom
just for doing their job," Obama said.
He noted the GOP did not succeed in shutting down ObamaCare, a large part of which opened officially on Tuesday.
Elsewhere
in Washington, House Republicans were pressuring Democratic senators to
meet them at the negotiating table to hash out a budget package.
The
House appointed "conferees" overnight who would -- if the Senate agrees
-- participate in a conference committee to craft a budget bill. Those
GOP representatives held a press conference Tuesday to note that
Democrats were nowhere to be found at that negotiating table.
"All
of us here (are) sitting at a table waiting for the Senate Democrats to
join us so we can begin to resolve our differences," House Republican
Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said.
"The
way to resolve our differences is to sit down and talk. And as you can
see, there's no one here on the other side of the table," he said.
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