The mood was grim at the Capitol Monday as Democrats and Republicans couldn't get it together for the good of the nation.
WASHINGTON — The first shutdown of the U.S. government in 17 years
began early Tuesday as Congress bickered and bungled an effort to fund
federal agencies due to a bitter ideological standoff over Obamacare.
The embarrassing disruption that an angry
President Obama
said was “entirely preventable” and would “throw a wrench into the
gears” of the country’s recovering economy was triggered as a midnight
deadline passed without agreement between the Republican-controlled
House and Democrat-run Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) disclosed at midnight that
the White House budget office had directed agencies to start closing up
shop. He then called a recess until 9:30 a.m., meaning that there would
be no House-Senate deal in the wee hours Tuesday.
Susan Walsh/AP
President Obama criticized Republicans' efforts to delay key aspects of the Affordable Care Act.
The shutdown would keep 800,000 federal workers at home on Tuesday and
inconvenience millions of people who rely on federal services or are
drawn to the nation’s parks and other attractions. Critical workers,
from the Border Patrol to air-traffic controllers, would remain on the
job, unpaid.
Legislation was passed, however, to fund the armed services during the shutdown.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
House Speaker John Boehner said Obamacare 'is having a devastating impact.'
Despite the drama, members of Congress faced no threat to their own
pay, because the 27th Amendment to the Constitution bars their salaries
from being subjected to the annual appropriations process. Obama, too,
will still be paid.
PHOTOS: GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN FURLOUGHS THOUSANDS OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
Conservative firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who made himself the
face of the GOP effort to block Obamacare through the funding bill,
pledged Monday to donate his salary to charity during the shutdown.
Photos by AP, Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News
Many Americans will be inconvenienced by a shutdown.
Repeatedly Monday, amid all the political posturing and rhetoric, the
House amended a Senate resolution to fund the government to add a
one-year delay in Obamacare, and other alterations. Repeatedly the
Senate rejected those conservative-backed changes.
The House was expected to pass the latest health-care law changes in an
early morning vote. The Senate was set to reject those additions when
they return Tuesday.
RELATED: WARREN: NOT MUCH COURAGE ON CAPITOL HILL AS SHUTDOWN LOOMS
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid (D-Nev.) arrives at the Capitol Monday. The Senate voted Monday to
defeat a House bill that links keeping the government funded to delaying
'Obamacare' for one year.
As the nearly ridiculous legislative tit-for-tat played out, Obama went
to the White House briefing room to insist that Republicans give up
their demand to tie new money for the government to scuttling or
delaying his health care law.
“One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of
government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to
refight the results of an election,” Obama said.
“You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what
you’re supposed to be doing anyway, or just because there’s a law there
that you don’t like.”
The front page of the NY Daily News on October 1, 2013.
RELATED: MEADOWS PUT GOVERNMENT ON ROAD TO SHUTDOWN
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) responded a few hours later on the
House floor. “The American people don’t want a shutdown, and neither do
I,” he said. Yet, he added, the new health care law “is having a
devastating impact. . . . Something has to be done.”
Even more troubling than the shutdown was that the partisan stalemate
that caused it sets the stage for an even more high-stakes clash, as
Congress must soon deal with raising the debt limit by Oct. 17 — a
matter in which both sides concede that failure would be perilous for
the U.S. economy and economies worldwide. Republicans also want to
attach conditions to that vote. Democrats said giving ground now would
encourage Republicans to take a harder line in that fight.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Congress remained gridlocked
Monday over legislation to continue funding the federal government. The
federal government shut down after both chambers failed to pass a
resolution before midnight.
“You know with a bully you can’t let them slap you around because they
slap you around today, they slap you five or six times tomorrow,” Reid
said.
RELATED: PANDA-MONIUM: NATIONAL ZOO’S BELOVED PANDA CAM WILL SHUTTER IF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTS DOWN
Monday’s failure on Capitol Hill caused the stock market to drop on
fears that gridlock would continue and Congress would shoot the
recovering economy in the foot. The Dow Jones slipped 128 points, or
0.8%.
Photo by AP
The last shutdown happened during President Clinton's time in office.
The fight also sent Congress’ already abysmal approval plunging to a
new low. A CNN poll released late Monday found that just 10% of
Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while a record 87%
disapprove. And Americans are blaming the Tea Party and its
no-holds-barred-against-Obama stance for the crisis — the party had its
lowest favorable rating in its five-year history, at 31%.
At times Monday, Washington seemed like a real-life “House of Cards,”
the Netflix drama in which D.C. power players are motivated by dark
self-interest rather than the national interest.
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JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS
Boehner arrives with his
security detail at the Capitol on Monday, remained adamant that
'Obamacare' be delayed. 'This law is not ready for prime time,' he said.
Congress, and the government, needed to act because there was no
authorization for the government to spend any money as of 12:01 a.m. on
Tuesday, the start of the new budget year.
Monday’s maneuvering began in the Democrat-controlled Senate, which
voted, 54 to 46, to kill a House-passed bill that would keep the
government funded but delay Obamacare for a year.
The Senate then sent the House a so-called “clean” bill — one that
would simply keep government running through Nov. 15. With the ball back
in their court, House Republicans sought different concessions in
exchange for keeping the government funded. They called for a one-year
delay in the Obamacare requirement for individuals to buy coverage.
Charles Dharapak/AP
Only 36% of Americans blame President Obama for the shutdown, a poll released Monday showed. 46% blame Republicans.
Sources: NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Shutdown effects ripple across US
A string of cancellations and delays caused by the
federal government shutdown is rippling across the United
States, ruining dream vacations, upending carefully laid
wedding plans and complicating the lives of millions of people.
From blood drives to daycare programs, musical performances
to research projects, the disruptions caused by the political
stalemate in Washington sparked growing frustrations and left
people scrambling to make alternative plans.
Scores of weddings planned at national parks and monuments
around the country were moved or postponed, and vacationers
hustled to change their itineraries after finding iconic
sites from the Statue of Liberty to the Lincoln Memorial
closed.
"We're really disappointed. We spent a lot of days waiting
for tickets so we just want to go inside the statue," said
Gaelle Masse, a tourist from Paris who was startled to
discover the Statue of Liberty was closed.
Thousands of tourists with prepaid tickets to visit Alcatraz
Island, the famed prison site in San Francisco Bay, were
unable to tour the former penitentiary.
In Boston, Italian tourist Federico Paliero and his
girlfriend Claudia Costato peered through a closed metal gate
to catch a glimpse of the USS Constitution, a wooden,
three-masted US Navy ship from the 18th century docked in
Boston Harbor that serves as one of the city's major
attractions.
Normally buzzing with tourists, the site was nearly abandoned
on Wednesday, except for a handful of people looking lost and
dismayed as they gawked at a sign explaining the closure.
"Italy is not the only state with money problems," Paliero
said, rubbing his thumb and forefingers together.
At Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, park
staff said nearly 30 weddings scheduled for the next two
weeks are threatened by the shutdown, which also sent
hundreds of campers packing.
'WORRIED ABOUT RAIN'
Two dozen weddings planned at monuments on the Washington
mall in October also were threatened, a park service
spokeswoman said.
"I wasn't worried about the government shutting down. I was
worried about rain," said bride-to-be MaiLien Le, who was
planning to walk down the aisle at the Jefferson Memorial on
Saturday.
Having to possibly change venues just days before her wedding
is "really upsetting," she said on NBC's "Today" show.
In northern Virginia, officials canceled blood drives that
would have provided transfusions for up to 900 area patients.
The Library of Congress in Washington closed its doors,
disrupting research projects and canceling a musical
performance by Randy Newman.
About one-fifth of the classes at the Naval Academy in
Annapolis, Maryland, were scrapped, and science laboratories
at the school were shut down as furloughs for civilian
Defense Department employees took hold.
The Smithsonian, which shuttered all of its museums and the
National Zoo, also had to close its early childhood center
even though many parents had already paid between $300 and
$400 in tuition for the week, according to local radio
station WTOP.
"When you have to sit down and explain to a 5-year-old why he
can't go to school, it's a difficult conversation," Virginia
resident Brian Katz, whose two children attend the
Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center housed in the Natural
History Museum, told a local Fox television station.
Juleon Rabbani, 28, got a call from the National Park Service
informing him that his scientific research in national parks
would be shut down for now, compounding funding issues he was
already facing.
"I wanted to graduate in the fall of 2014, but with my
funding being held up and since my research sites are
national parks, it will be well into 2015 before I am done,"
he said. "The funding I need won't come through, and who
knows how long this shutdown will be."
Some Washington businesses faced growing uncertainty as the
shutdown continued, keeping government events away from
hotels and federal workers out of their usual restaurants.
David Hill, general manager for two area hotels, said two
dozen events at the hotels have been canceled in the coming
weeks, including one large government group that triggered a
$45,000 loss.
"What I've told my team is: for us, it's business as usual
... but everything in the future is in limbo," said Hill, who
manages the Phoenix Park Hotel just blocks from the US
Capitol and the Four Points by Sheraton near the White House.
Grain traders in Chicago were preparing to cope without
weekly US Department of Agriculture data on export sales
typically released on Thursdays. The data, covering sales the
previous week, can roil prices for crops like corn and wheat
if demand is unexpectedly strong or weak.
"For now, we'll go with our best guesses," said Sterling
Smith, futures specialist for Citigroup.
Traders and analysts were frustrated that USDA websites went
dark as a result of the federal shutdown. They mine the sites
for data on crop supplies and demand to project price trends.
Terry Reilly, analyst for Futures International, said he
could not complete presentations on the grain markets for
clients because USDA data was unavailable.
"It makes no sense to me that they would shut down their
websites," he said.
Sources: Reuters
