It was only at the weekend after House Republicans decided to prolong their fight on health care and send a budget bill back to the Senate with a one-year delay in Obamacare, that the reality of the situation became apparent.
Congress has missed the deadline for averting the first partial government shutdown in 17 years at midnight on Monday.
The White House never though the government
would actually shut down and as a result West Wing officials hardly
spent any time over the past week planning for it, an administration
aide said on Monday
As the clock struck midnight Monday, House Republicans were demanding that the Senate negotiate their demand for a one-year delay in making millions of people buy health insurance under President Barack Obama's 2010 health care law. Minutes before midnight, the White House ordered a shutdown.
The Democratic Senate on Monday twice rejected GOP demands to delay key portions of what has become to known as Obamacare as a condition for keeping the government open.
An estimated 800,000 federal workers faced furloughs though many were told work a half day Tuesday. Critical functions like air traffic control and military operations will continue. Social Security benefits will be paid. National parks and most federal offices will close.
Now that the shutdown has taken affect, they intend continue to project an image of a White House keeping up with the country’s business and not just the drama on Capitol Hill, reports Politico.
Speaker of the House John Boehner parried a
Senate-passed temporary budget bill that wouldn't defund the Obamacare
law, and is now angling for a one-year pause in the law's implementation
instead as a halfway measure
As
much of the federal government grinds to a halt, President Barack Obama
is telling the U.S. military he'll push Congress to re-open the
government as soon as possible.
In
his sole response early Tuesday to Congress' failure to avert the first
shutdown in nearly two decades, Obama addressed his comments in a video
to American troops, rather than the lawmakers he's been scolding for
weeks.There was no reference in the three-minute video message to Republicans, whose insistence that Obama's health care law be scaled back has been at the center of a grueling back-and-forth between the GOP-controlled House and the Democratic-led Senate.
‘Unfortunately, Congress has not fulfilled its responsibility,’ Obama said. ‘It has failed to pass a budget and, as a result, much of our government must now shut down until Congress funds it again.’
Troops in uniform in Afghanistan and elsewhere will stay on duty, Obama said, noting he'd signed a law Monday to ensure they get their paychecks on time.
That GOP bill began in the House and was taken up by the Senate, reflecting a rare measure of agreement among Democrats and Republicans: No one wants to be blamed for the military not getting paid.
Addressing the troops: President Obama released a
video directed towards the members of the military, explaining that
they will still be working and earning their paychecks but their
civilian counterparts will be furloughed
But thousands of civilians who work for the Defense Department face furloughs, compounding the damage already inflicted on the military by automatic spending cuts.
‘I know this comes on top of the furloughs that many of you already endured this summer,’ Obama said. ‘You and your families deserve better than the dysfunction we're seeing in Congress.’
Hundreds of thousands of government workers will be off the job Tuesday after a short work period to wind down operations, but some essential services, including border patrols, air traffic controllers and Social Security benefits, will continue.
Meanwhile, it was unclear how long the shutdown would last or how Congress would find a way to agree on restoring funding.
As the shutdown approached hours earlier with Congress gridlocked, Obama called Republican and Democratic congressional leaders, but there was no breakthrough in the budget impasse.
Obama said a ‘shutdown will have a very real economic impact on real people, right away,’ with hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed and veterans' centers, national parks, most of the space agency and other government operations shuttered.
Putting pen to paper: This is the memo that implemented the shutdown at midnight on Monday
On Tuesday, Obama planned to meet with Americans who will enroll in new insurance exchanges created by his health care law; ironically, implementation of the law and the opening of the exchanges on Tuesday will proceed despite the shutdown.
The spending fight is a prelude to the bigger confrontation over the nation's credit limit, expected to hit its $16.7 trillion cap in mid-October. Obama on Monday urged Republicans not to saddle the legislation to increase the debt ceiling with measures designed to undermine the health care law.
He has vowed not to negotiate over the debt ceiling, saying that a default would be worse for the economy than a partial government shutdown.
On Wednesday, Obama is scheduled to meet with top Wall Street CEOs to discuss the state of the economy, including the debt ceiling.
The meeting will be with members of the Financial Services Forum, a trade group representing the 19 biggest financial service institutions doing business in the United States, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citigroup.
The Forum joined 250 other business organizations in a letter to Congress on Monday calling on lawmakers to avoid a shutdown, raise the debt ceiling and then address long-term spending issues and deficits.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blamed
House Republicans Monday for the brinksmanship that has pushed the U.S.
toward a federal government shutdown
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