US president Barack Obama urged House Republicans to pass a short-term budget and keep the government open as political opponents were locked in a stalemate over America’s latest fiscal row.
The Democrat-led US Senate yesterday quickly rejected a last-minute budget plan from the Republican-controlled House of Representative that would delay Mr Obama's signature healthcare law.
The Senate’s 52 to 46 vote kicked the Bill back down to the House, turning the latest fiscal deadlock in Washington into a game of legislative ping-pong and pushing the US closer to the first government shutdown in 17 years.
With less than seven hours before the government shutdown deadline at midnight, Mr Obama refused to budge to the demands of House Republicans and urged them to "do the right thing" and keep our government open, saying that "one faction of one party" cannot shut down government.
'Extract a ransom'
"You don't get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what you are supposed to be doing anyway or just because there is a law there that you don't like," he said.
Describing the Republicans’ tactics as the “height of irresponsibility,” Mr Obama warned that a government shutdown would “throw a wrench into the gears of the economy”.
Keeping the government open was “not a concession to me,” said the US president, but was a basic responsibility of government.
In a deeply divided Congress the rhetoric from Democrats and Republicans grew more aggressive yesterday as US senators voted shortly after 2pm to call the bluff of House Republicans in the fight over a deal to fund the federal government beyond the end of the fiscal year.
The Republicans, driven by their radical right-wing faction, are using a routine short-term budgetary measure that would fund the government in their attempt to unravel Obamacare, the landmark healthcare law of Mr Obama’s first term that will extend health insurance to millions of Americans.
Another version
The party met after the Senate vote to hatch another version of their Bill to be sent up to the Senate that would again attempt to delay Obamacare.
Republicans, many of whom were elected last year in opposition to Obamacare being passed in 2010, showed no sign of backing down.
The Republican majority leader in the House Eric Cantor ruled out a short-term government funding measure being agreed that would not include a measure de-funding Obamacare.
Without agreement, the government faces shutdown today for the first time since 1996, sending hundreds of thousands of workers home on unpaid leave, and closing museums and national parks.
The budget showdown is the first of two crises facing Congress as the US Treasury has warned that if lawmakers do not agree an increase to the country’s borrowing limit, the so-called “debt ceiling”, then the US faces a default.
Democratic senator Chuck Schumer described Speaker John Boehner, the most senior Republican in the House, as like "the ancient Mayans offering a sacrificial offering to the right-wing gods".
