Obama tells ‘extremists’ in Congress to ‘knock it off’ and pass the temporary budget bill in order to avoid a government shutdown
- The Senate had to vote on a temporary measure to keep the federal government funded but a group of conservative Republicans attached a clause defunding ‘Obamacare’
- The Democratic majority in the Senate stripped the health care funding issue from the bill and passed the budget measure today
- Now the budget bill has to be approved by the House of Representatives in order to stave off a federal shut down on Tuesday
- Republican leaders want to wait to hold the vote because there are concerns that conservative members may try to stop it from passing in order to make a point about the Affordable Care Act
- If the House votes against the bill, there will be little time for the bill to get passed before funding runs out and 800,000 workers are furloughed
President Obama has issued a stern warning to Congress saying that the ‘extremists’ who were threatening to shut down the government need to stop politicizing the ‘full faith and credit of the United States’ as it could rock the global economy.
The President held a press conference Friday afternoon, hours after the Senate approved the temporary budget measure that would allow the government to remain funded so that 800,000 federal workers would not be furloughed come Tuesday.
He called for them to fulfill their two main responsibilities: ‘Pass a budget on time and pay our bills on time’.
‘Unlike the last time they threatened this course of action, this debate isn’t really about our deficits…instead the House Republicans are so concerned about appeasing the Tea Party,’ he said at a press conference Friday afternoon.
Laying down the law: President Obama called for the group of ‘extremists’ on Capitol Hill who were holding up the vote to ‘knock it off’ and raise the budget before dramatically endangering the global economy
Not negotiating: Obama said that he will not bargain and trade in order to get the country’s bills paid
Not messing around: Obama has not spoken with John Boehner all week
‘This grandstanding has real effects on real people,’ he said, citing how military personnel who are serving overseas will have their pay delayed and their families will be forced to do without.
The other issue that the President focused on in his speech was the fact that following the passage of a budget, the next battle will be over raising the debt ceiling, which he described as the decision to ‘pay the bills that have already been racked up’.
‘Nobody gets to threaten the full faith and credit of the United States just for political reasons.
‘The American people have worked too hard to recover from a bunch of crises… to see extremists in Congress cause another crisis.’
The Senate has done their part to allow temporary funding of the government by passing the bill that will avoid a shutdown, but it now needs to be approved by the House of Representatives in order to be signed into law.
The solution may not be reached until after the weekend- just hours before the deadline to avoid the shutdown- because Republican lawmakers are worried that a fraction of their members may vote against the budget bill if it is brought to a vote today.
Their problem lies with the fact that the Democratic majority in the Senate stripped the bill of the provision that would defund President Obama’s health care plan.
Bring it on: Senator Ted Cruz was one of 19 Republicans who voted against the temporary budget bill that would keep the government open and avoid a federal shut down on Tuesday
Get in line: Senior Republican leaders- including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell- rejected the move to tie Obamacare funding to the funding of the government
A group of conservatives including Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, who gained national attention for staging a 21-hour filibuster to make a point about how ‘Obamacare’ should not be funded’, wanted the budget to both fund the government and defund the Affordable Care Act.
In spite of Cruz’s efforts, there was never a viable chance that those plans would be approved in the Senate because of the heavy Democratic presence.
On Friday the Senate overwhelmingly rejected the ‘Obamacare’ provision- by 79 to 19.
Some of the most senior Republicans in the Senate- including Minority leader Mitch McConnell, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham- voted to pass the cloture motion which would pass a continuing resolution that would keep the government fully funded until November 15.
‘Today, the Republican Party has been infected by a small and destructive faction,’ Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said.
The overall budget bill was passed by the Senate but with a much smaller margin, as the final approval came with a vote of 54 for the bill and 44 against.
Now, before the temporary funding goes into effect, the House needs to approve of the temporary funding.
Looming: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid looks at a countdown clock as he warned that the Republican-controlled House must pass the budget bill or face being blamed for furloughing 800,000 federal workers
The Republican-controlled House could cause problems, however, because there is a group of rebellious Representatives who are willing to vote against the budget- and in turn, shut down the government- because they think it is insufficient in cutting down on spending.
If the bill is not passed, 800,000 federal workers will be put on unpaid leave on Tuesday.
On a wider scale, American standing in the world economy will be threatened as it was when the country’s credit rating was downgraded following the 2011 budget debate.
Leaders of the Republican party are among the most concerned about a shutdown as the actions of the riskier, more conservative members could spell doom for the party on the whole. If a shut down does occur because the House doesn’t pass the bill, GOP leaders fear that it will be blamed on their party.
Cruz’s filibuster helped him raise both his public profile and campaign funds, but it did not win him a loyal army of Republican friends in the House who feel that they are being set up to look like they are against the conservative cause if they vote to keep the government funded.
‘I think that a government shutdown is counterproductive to our message in 2014, because we transfer the public’s attention perhaps away from Obamacare and instead put it on the pain that will be inflicted, that is still to be determined, on the effects of a government shutdown,’ Republican Congressman Steve Womack said.
ASK THE HO– — — USE TO DEFUND OBAMACARE
The Republicans in the House must not accept the funding of ObamaCare and should pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government after September 30.
