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FOLLOWING A WEEK of divisive debate, the US Senate has passed a temporary budget — sending the legislation to the House amid a congressional show-down, just days from a possible government closure.
House Speaker John Boehner has indicated that Republicans will likely alter the legislation and send it back to the Senate — a move that could leave insufficient time for an amended bill to pass both chambers of Congress before a fiscal year-end deadline of midnight Monday.
The Senate voted along strict party lines – 54 Democrats to 44 Republicans – to approve the measure, which funds government operations until 15 November 15 at the annual rate of $986 billion.
However, the legislation in its current form also strips out language that would have defunded President Barack Obama’s health care law.
That provision on so-called “Obamacare” had been the key sticking point — and the Senate’s Democratic leader Harry Reid did away with it after Obama insisted he would not sign a budget bill that defunded his signature domestic legislative achievement.
Several Republicans had supported moving forward to debate and vote on the bill given the precarious timing, but they united in opposition to it once Reid removed the provision defunding Obamacare.
The Democratic majority prevailed, with Senator Barbara Mikulski saying the bill “will lay the groundwork for us to get to a solution on the long-term fiscal needs of our country”.
But it was the short-term that was to be the all-consuming question today and through the weekend — as the House goes into session on Saturday and possibly Sunday to debate and vote on a way out of the looming fiscal crisis.
Shutdown
House Speaker John Boehner has indicated his caucus is unlikely to support passage of the Senate’s stripped down version, suggesting yesterday that Republicans will seek to insert some conservative sweeteners in the legislation and send it back to the Senate.
Such a move would push the US government perilously close to the end of the current fiscal year, 30 September.
If no funding bill is in place by Tuesday, 1 October, many government agencies are mandated to start shutting their doors.
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The US is currently printing more than $80 billion a month to keep the lights on. This is not sustainable. American taxpayers will eventually discover (as Irish taxpayers should by now) that all government largess is eventually funded by ordinary taxpayers.
“Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.”
― Frédéric Bastiat
That 80 billion is put into the economy by the fed.
Its not the governments current a/c deficit …. (though I’m sure that is also pretty high).
Don’t suppose it’s possible to close our govt.?
How about instead of wasting your money on your military, you actually try and save it!
But if they don’t invest so heavily in imperialism they won’t be able to create the New World Order.
Murica
Is this sh!t still going on?
It ends when America gets its A back. I have doubts it ever will.
This just goes to show we’re not the only country where politicians make a balls of things
But guess who still gets their paychecks?
Bartlet for America
I blame enda
Me too!
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