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| Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, pumps his fist as he walks past reporters after a meeting with House Republicans on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 in Washington. The partial government shutdown is in its third week and less than two days before the Treasury Department says it will be unable to borrow and will rely on a cash cushion to pay the country's bills. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- Up against one last deadline, Congress raced to pass legislation
Wednesday avoiding a threatened national default and ending a 16-day
partial government shutdown along the strict terms set by President
Barack Obama when the twin crises began.
"We
fought the good fight. We just didn't win," conceded House Speaker John
Boehner as lawmakers lined up to vote on a bill that includes nothing
for Republicans demanding to eradicate or scale back Obama's signature
health care overhaul.
The stock market surged
higher at the prospect of an end to the crisis that also had threatened
to shake confidence in the U.S. economy overseas.
A
Senate vote was set first on the legislation, which would permit the
Treasury to borrow normally through Feb. 7 or perhaps a month longer,
and fund the government through Jan. 15. More than two million federal
workers - those who had remained on the job and those who had been
furloughed - would be paid under the agreement.
Across the Capitol, members of the House marked time until their turn came to vote.
Only
a temporary truce, the measure set a timeframe of early next winter for
the next likely clash between Obama and the Republicans over spending
and borrowing.
But for now, government was
lurching back to life. In one example, officials met to discuss plans
for gearing back up at the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
where 307 employees remained at work during the partial shutdown and
more than 8,000 were furloughed.
After weeks
of gridlock, the measure had support from the White House, most if not
all Democrats in Congress and many Republicans fearful of the economic
impact of a default.
Boehner and the rest of
the top GOP leadership told their rank and file they would vote for the
measure, and there was little or no doubt it would pass both houses and
reach the White House in time for Obama's signature before the
administration's 11:59 p.m. Oct. 17 deadline.
That
was when Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the government would reach
the current $16.7 trillion debt limit and could no longer borrow to meet
its obligations.
Tea party-aligned lawmakers
who triggered the shutdown that began on Oct. 1 said they would vote
against the legislation. Significantly, though, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and
others agreed not to use the Senate's cumbersome 18th century rules to
slow the bill's progress.
"The compromise we
reached will provide our economy with the stability it desperately
needs," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, declaring that the
nation "came to the brink of disaster" before sealing an agreement.
Senate
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who negotiated the deal with Reid,
emphasized that it preserved a round of spending cuts negotiated two
years ago with Obama and Democrats. As a result, he said, "government
spending has declined for two years in a row" for the first time since
the Korean War.
"And we're not going back on this agreement," he added.
McConnell
made no mention of the polls showing that the shutdown and flirtation
with default have sent Republicans' public approval plummeting and have
left the party badly split nationally as well as in his home state of
Kentucky. He received a prompt reminder, though.
"When
the stakes are highest Mitch McConnell can always be counted on to sell
out conservatives," said Matt Bevin, who is challenging the party
leader from the right in a 2014 election primary.
More
broadly, national tea party groups and their allies underscored the
internal divide. The Club for Growth urged lawmakers to vote against the
congressional measure, and said it would factor in the organization's
decision when it decides which candidates to support in midterm
elections next year.
"There are no significant
changes to Obamacare, nothing on the other major entitlements that are
racked with trillions in unfunded liabilities, and no meaningful
spending cuts either. If this bill passes, Congress will kick the can
down the road, yet again," the group said.
Even
so, support for Boehner appeared solid inside his fractious rank and
file. "There are no plots, plans or rumblings that I know of. And I was
part of one in January, so I'd probably be on the whip list for that,"
said Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce came out in favor of the bill.
Simplicity
at the end, there was next to nothing in the agreement beyond
authorization for the Treasury to resume borrowing and funding for the
government to reopen.
House and Senate
negotiators are to meet this fall to see if progress is possible on a
broad deficit-reduction compromise of the type that has proved elusive
in the current era of divided government.
Additionally,
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is to be required
to produce a report stating that her agency is capable of verifying the
incomes of individuals who apply for federal subsidies under the health
care law known as Obamacare.
Obama had
insisted repeatedly he would not pay "ransom" by yielding to Republican
demands for significant changes to the health care overhaul in exchange
for funding the government and permitting Treasury the borrowing
latitude to pay the nation's bills.
Other
issues fell by the wayside in a final deal, including a Republican
proposal for the suspension of a medical device tax in Obamacare and a
Democratic call to delay a fee on companies for everyone who receives
health coverage under an employer-sponsored plan.
The
gradual withering of Republicans' Obamacare-related demands defined the
arc of the struggle that has occupied virtually all of Congress' time
for the past three weeks.
The shutdown began
on Oct. 1 after Cruz and his tea party allies in the House demanded the
defunding of the health care law as a trade for providing essential
government funding.
Obama and Reid refused, then refused again and again as Boehner gradually scaled back Republican demands.
The
shutdown initially idled about 800,000 workers, but that soon fell to
about 350,000 after Congress agreed to let furloughed Pentagon employees
return to work. While there was widespread inconvenience, the mail was
delivered, Medicare continued to pay doctors who treated seniors and
there was no interruption in Social Security benefits.
Still,
national parks were closed to the detriment of tourists and local
businesses, government research scientists were sent home and Food and
Drug Administration inspectors worked only sporadically.
Obama
and Boehner both came to the same conclusion - that they would allow
the shutdown to persist for two weeks, until it became politically
possible to reopen government and address the threat of default at the
same time.
As Republican polls sank, Boehner
refused to let the House vote on legislation to reopen the entire
government, insisting on a piecemeal approach that the White House and
Reid rejected as insufficient.
As the Oct. 17
debt-limit deadline approached, there were warnings from European
officials as well as Cabinet members and bankers in this country that
failure to raise the debt limit invited an economic disaster far worse
than the near-meltdown of 2008.
On Tuesday, the Fitch credit rating agency said it was reviewing its AAA rating on U.S. government debt for possible downgrade.
By then, the endgame was underway.
Late
last week, Obama met with Boehner and House Republicans at the White
House. The session resulted in brief follow-up talks in which GOP aides
suggested easing the across-the-board spending cuts in exchange for
changes in benefit programs such as making Medicare more expensive for
better-off beneficiaries.
After that faltered,
Reid and McConnell announced over the weekend they were seeking a deal
to solve the crises, and expressed hope they could quickly come to an
agreement.
That effort was suspended on
Tuesday, a day of suspense in which Boehner made one last stab at a
conservatives' solution. When his rank and file refused to coalesce
around any proposal, he gave up and McConnell and Reid returned to their
labors.
