With the House voting to avoid a partial government shutdown early Sunday but also delay Obamacare and permanently repeal its medical device tax, a government shutdown is looking all but certain--or is it? House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday that the chamber has other options to avoid a government shutdown. NRO has the details:
House GOP whip Kevin McCarthy said the House will send a third government-funding bill with “a few other options” if the Democratic-controlled Senate rejects the bill passed in the House last night, as expected.
“We will pass a bill . . . that will keep the government open, that will reflect the House, that I believe the Senate can accept, that will have fundamental changes to Obamacare that can protect the economy for America,” McCarthy said onFox News Sunday.
The remarks confirmNational Review Online’sreportingyesterday that House leadership is considering an eleventh-hour play like passing a “clean” continuing resolution (CR) with language added to end a subsidy for congressional staffers to purchase health insurance.
McCarthy said there are “a lot of items on the table” in discussions about which provision to add to an otherwise clean CR.
McCarthy insisted, however, that the House will not be responsible for a shutdown. “We are not shutting the government down,” he said. “While the president was out playing golf [Saturday], we were here until 1 a.m. We will pass a bill that reflects this House … I think they’ll be additions that Democrats can support.”
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Meanwhile, Ted Cruz believes Senate Democrats will be the ones responsible should the government shut down on Tuesday. “It is the Democrats who have taken an absolutist position,” Cruz told NBC's "Meet the Press", adding that they have offered “zero” compromise.
“Even now what the House of Representatives has done is a step removed from defunding – it's delaying it,” Cruz said. “Now that's the essence of a compromise. For all of us who want to see it repealed, simply delaying it for American families on the same terms as has been done for American corporations – that's a compromise.”
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