22 House Republicans Support 'Clean' Senate Bill; 17 Needed to Pass

Twenty-two Republicans support a "clean" resolution backed by the Obama administration to end the federal shutdown and continue funding Obamacare, The Washington Post reported

For the Senate-amended continuing resolution to pass, 217 House members would have to vote in favor; if all 200 House Democrats vote for it, 17 Republicans would also need to support it. So far, they've passed that number by five, according to the Post tally.

The House had passed legislation that would temporarily fund the government and delay the implementation of Obamacare's individual mandate.

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At least three Republicans are leaning toward supporting the Senate's bill, the Post reports. They are Reps. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia; Rodney Davis of Illinois; Leonard Lance of New Jersey, and Steve Womack of Arkansas.

The Post says 207 Republicans would vote against the bill, including several who have recently changed their minds.

GOP Rep. Randy Forbes of Virginia was quoted in The Virginian-Pilot earlier this month supporting the clean bill — known as a continuing resolution, or CR. But on Tuesday, Forbes told the Post that the newspaper had "misrepresented" his comments.

A Forbes spokesman told The Washington Post the congressman "would not support the CR as amended by the Senate and he would need to read any other iteration of a proposal providing full funding for the government before he could say where he stands on it.”
 
Via: Newsmax

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Merging Spending and Debt Debates Means Shutdown Likely to Last 2 Weeks

Signs grew clearer today that the debates about reopening the government, raising the debt limit and setting spending levels for the next year are being rolled into one. And one unspoken consequence is that the partial shutdown, now in its third day, looks increasingly likely to stay in effect for the next two weeks – until the Treasury’s deadline for either gaining more borrowing authority or defaulting.

Senior congressional Republicans and Democrats are conceding it makes little policy or political sense to put much more effort into finding votes for a continuing resolution lasting only a few weeks, when the even more consequential debt ceiling must be confronted almost immediately after.

GOP conservatives still believe they can win concessions from President Barack Obama — on both entitlement curbs and curtailing Obamacare — as part of a double-barrel bargain on both spending and borrowing. The president forcefully rebutted that expectation this morning.

“Let me be clear: There will be no more negotiating,” he told a friendly crowd assembled at construction company  in suburban Rockville, Md., echoing the message he delivered last night to the four top congressional leaders during a meeting in the Oval Office that seemed only to harden the standoff in all corners. His message to the GOP, the president said: “You don’t get a reward for keeping the government running, and you don’t get a reward for keeping the economy running.”

Obama spoke as the Treasury Department warned that an impasse on the debt ceiling beyond Oct. 17, when the government will be essentially out of cash to pay its bills, could start a downward economic plunge worse than the recession of five years ago – with credit markets seizing up, the dollar’s value plummeting and U.S. interest rates soaring. And even coming close to the brink of such an unprecedented default could roil both domestic and foreign financial markets.

For at least another day, though, Republicans planned to keep pursuing their current  strategy of pushing bills through the House to open the most politically popular portions of the government. Votes are planned this afternoon on bills to fund veterans programs and most operations of the reserves and the National Guard. The Democratic Senate was sure to reject those, along with bills passed by the House on Wednesday to take the sawhorses away from national park entrances, revive federal biomedical research and cover operations for the  District of Columbia.

Via: Roll Call

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