WASHINGTON—The federal government moved closer to a partial shutdown Sunday as Republican and Democratic lawmakers showed no signs of negotiating through a standoff over the implementation of President Barack Obama's health law.
The standoff left little prospect that Congress could reach agreement on terms for funding the government by midnight Monday, when the current fiscal year expires. A shutdown would leave essential services operating but prompt federal agencies to suspend many functions and furlough hundreds of thousands of workers.
Budget Battle
Government workers brace for another potential shutdown, with the possibility of no back-pay, while Americans are wondering if they'll get their mail. Laura Meckler joins the News Hub with what to expect when you're expecting a government shutdown. (Photo: AP)
Early Sunday morning, after a late night of votes, the House passed a bill delaying the health law by one year and attached it to a plan to fund the government through Dec. 15. It also includes a provision repealing a tax on medical devices that is intended to help finance the health law. That legislation now goes back to the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) denounced the House GOP vote as "pointless," and the White House said Mr. Obama would veto the House bill, which delays his signature first-term health-care law.
Facing the first shutdown since 1996, officials from both sides of the aisle took to the airwaves Sunday to lament the prospect while explaining why the other party would be responsible.
The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin, said he expects the government to shut down, saying the Republicans' move to delay the federal health-care law is a nonstarter in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The Illinois senator said on CBS that he would be willing to discuss changes to the law, known as Obamacare, but not "with a gun to my head."
With the two chambers at an impasse, the future remained unclear Sunday. There was no sign that negotiations were being scheduled among congressional leaders. The Senate isn't scheduled to reconvene until Monday afternoon, just hours before the end of the fiscal year, when government funding for many federal functions expires.
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) blasted Democrats for not reconvening the Senate sooner, saying in a statement that waiting until Monday afternoon to meet "would be an act of breathtaking arrogance."
"They will be deliberately bringing the nation to the brink of a government shutdown for the sake of raising taxes on seniors' pacemakers and children's hearing aids and plowing ahead with the train wreck that is the president's health-care law," Mr. Boehner said.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) on Sunday described Senate Democrats as absolutists unwilling to compromise.
"So far, Majority Leader Harry Reid has essentially told the House of Representatives and the American people, 'Go jump in a lake,' " Mr. Cruz said on NBC.
And in an apparent acknowledgment that a shutdown is likely, the House early Sunday also approved legislation to ensure that military personnel would be paid in the event no funding measure is enacted. Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) said Sunday that the Senate would likely pass similar legislation to continue paying military salaries.
Republicans have been determined to use the budget deadline as leverage in their long-running battle to undercut the health-care law, which reaches a landmark moment on Tuesday, when one of its most important components takes effect. On that day, people can begin to sign up for health-insurance policies through new online marketplaces.
Mr. Boehner was under pressure from conservative House members to carry the fight against the health law as long as possible.
"Pushing until the very, very last minute has been one of the mainstays of the House GOP's negotiating strategy on budget issues," said Stan Collender a former aide to the House and Senate Budget Committees who is now a budget specialist at Qorvis Communications. If House Republicans eventually accede to a simple funding bill, shorn of changes to the new health law, it won't likely be until the 11th hour on Monday, he said.
Some Republicans held hope that the Senate would agree at least to repeal the medical-devices tax, giving the House GOP a victory. In votes earlier this year, senators from both parties backed a repeal, but Democrats were unlikely to do so as part of the current budget fight.
Some 800,000 of more than two million federal workers were furloughed in a 1995 shutdown, with fewer workers affected in a following shutdown that stretched into early 1996. The number who would be furloughed this time is unclear and would vary by agency. The Pentagon has said that 400,000 civilian defense workers would be sent home.
Postal and air-traffic-control services would continue, and Social Security checks would be mailed. But many federal functions would be suspended, such as surveillance of flu and other diseases by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National parks and museums would close.
In the vote to delay the health law, two Republicans broke from their party to oppose a delay. They were New York Reps. Chris Gibson and Richard Hanna.
Two Democrats voted in favor of the one-year delay: Reps. Jim Matheson (D., Utah) and Mike McIntyre (D., N.C.).
The White House and congressional Democrats are opposed to delaying the health law but have indicated they would entertain changes to improve the bill. But they have firmly opposed talking about even modest changes as part of negotiating the government funding bill.
—Janet Hook, Kristina Peterson and Siobhan Hughes contributed to this article. 
