Republicans carried out their threat to shut down the government if the Affordable Care Act was not de-funded. Now more than 800,000 thousand federal workers will not recieve paychecks, and delivery of services will slow to a crawl or not be provided at all. The irresponsible game of political chicken could devastate the recovery, which is estimated to eliminate $1 billion a week from the U.S. economy.
The federal government officially shut down at 12:01 Tuesday morning after House Speaker John Boehner and other Republicans failled to pass a continuing budget resolution.
The House did pass a spending bill that that included language that would have delayed implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which had no chance of passing in the Senate. The Senate stripped the bill of its amendments, pass it, and send it back to the House.
Late M0nday night House Republicans offered to setup a bipartisan conference committee to negotiate the differences between the House and Senate bills.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., rejected that proposal, stating "the Senate isn't interested in passing anything but a clean spending bill" and that they won't be forced to negotiate "with a gun to our head."
Senate Democrats also pointed out that they had been calling for a bipartisan conference for months, a request that had been brushed off by House Republicans.
No Comment