[VIDEO] Why Congress Could Face a Government Shutdown This Fall

The House and Senate are set to leave Washington, D.C., for a month-long summer break. But they are leaving behind unfinished business.

When lawmakers return in September, they will have little time to tackle legislative priorities like the Iran nuclear deal, transportation funding and the debt ceiling.

However, the major fight could be over Planned Parenthood’s federal funding—possibly leading to another government shutdown.

Watch the video above to learn more why these 11th-hour issues will test the ability of congressional leaders to avoid a government shutdown.

Via: Daily Signal

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Anatomy of shutdown: How collapse of governing led to closing of D.C.'s WW II memorial BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

WASHINGTON — The World War II veterans from Mississippi’s Gulf Coast had been planning their trip to Washington’s World War II memorial since the spring.

On Oct. 1, at 7 a.m., the 91 veterans boarded a US Airways charter at Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, bound for the nation’s capital.

They flew into a media firestorm.

Their buses pulled up to a memorial surrounded by metal barricades, closed as part of the partial federal-government shutdown. A handful of congressmen and senators awaited them, many accusing President Barack Obama of coldly ordering the memorial closed just to show the human toll of a shutdown driven by Republicans. All of it played out for the TV cameras.

In fact, the decisions that put the memorial at risk of being closed were made at key points months earlier, not just in the week the government shut down. More than a single flash point in a partisan clash, the closing of the war memorial serves as a case study in the collapse of governing in Washington.

Today, little has been resolved. The shutdown ended with a temporary spending pact that will expire soon. Congressional negotiators have until next Friday to craft a federal budget before money runs out again on Jan. 15. Even if they forge an agreement, it probably will be an affirmation of the new reality of lurching from crisis to crisis, not a return to the deliberative process of deciding spending item by item.

Via: McClatchyDC

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/12/06/210737/anatomy-of-shutdown-how-collapse.html#storylink=cpy

[VIDEO] Ryan: No need to worry about another shutdown

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House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday that the country doesn’t need to worry about another government shutdown in January when the current stopgap spending bill runs out.

 

The government shutdown lasted for 16 days in October, after Republicans demanded that President Obama defund his signature healthcare law.

 

To avoid another shutdown, Ryan said either he and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) would strike a budget deal or Congress would pass a stopgap keeping existing spending levels.

 

“Either of those two scenarios will prevail, and we will not have a government shutdown,” he said at theWall Street Journal annual CEO Council. “We will keep the government funding at the current level if need be.”

 

Ryan said that he does not believe there will be any brinkmanship over the debt ceiling in February either. He said Republicans now understand that a shutdown won’t stop ObamaCare because it is a mandatory program, not a discretionary agency budget line item. 

 

“ObamaCare is an entitlement, they are not related,” he said. 

 

Ryan said that some progress has been made with Murray, but fundamental disagreements remain over entitlement reform, taxes and whether a deal would cut the deficit below the current path. 

 

“We are farther than we were when we started,” he said, adding that “they [Democrats] are signaling they are not willing to do entitlement reform in any form.”

 

He also argued that closing tax loopholes now would hurt bipartisan attempts to reform the tax code. Deficit reduction from such changes should be used to lower rates, he argued.

 

“If we take tax loopholes and put them in this budget process, we are shortchanging tax reform,” Ryan said.

Via: The Hill

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Deal to avoid another government shutdown struggling in Senate

WASHINGTON -- The congressional committee that is trying to negotiate a deal to prevent the next government shutdown has run into a roadblock: Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

McConnell, the GOP minority leader, made the trek across the Capitol on Tuesday to tell a private session of House Republicans that his preference is not to give in when it comes to easing up on the mandatory budget cuts that are set to take effect Jan. 15.

“I wish them well,” McConnell said about the bipartisan House-Senate committee trying to craft a deal. “I hope they’ll comply with the law.”

McConnell’s foray into the budget talks come as the Kentucky senator is heading toward a tough reelection battle in the Bluegrass State where he faces not only a Democrat candidate, but a tea party-styled Republican challenging him from the right.

PHOTOS: 2013's memorable political moments

Congress is facing another shutdown threat when money to fund the government runs out Jan. 15. At that time, the next round of so-called sequester cuts are set to slice across government departments, imposed by Congress as part of an earlier failed attempt to force a budget compromise.

Finding bipartisan agreement this time has been as tough as ever. Lawmakers from both parties increasingly view those sequester cuts as a bad idea, but the divisions inside the GOP have deepened.

Fiscal conservatives want to preserve the sequester cuts as their biggest trophy from the last several years of politically bruising fights with Democrats and the White House. But the party’s defense hawks, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), want to undo the Pentagon reductions, saying the cuts would decimate the Defense Department.

McConnell’s suggestion for keeping the top-line spending on par with the sequester cuts is not a recipe for compromise with Democrats. His proposal would essentially require shifting the reductions away from the Pentagon and onto other government programs, something Democrats have resisted as they push for new tax revenue by closing loopholes.

“That’s not where the American people are,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is leading the bipartisan budget committee with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) “They want us to solve the sequester issue. They don’t want the government to shut down again.”

The committee of House and Senate lawmakers has largely moved its work to the backrooms, with no public meetings scheduled. Top leaders face a Dec. 13 deadline to cut a deal

Via: Chicago Tribune

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Karl Rove: Obamacare Will Devastate Democrats in 2014

Just a few short weeks ago, Republican elders could only hope that time would make voters forget about the government shutdown the party engineered in October.

Now, with millions of Americans in an uproar over health insurance policies canceled because of President Barack Obama's health care law, Republicans believe they could seize control of the Senate and build on their majority in the House of Representatives in the November 2014 congressional elections.
Republican strategist Karl Rove, architect of George W. Bush's two presidential victories, said Obamacare could hurt Democratic candidates more than in 2010.

Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll 

"In 2014, it's likely to be a bigger, more obvious and equally deadly issue for Democrats, especially incumbent Democrats in red, even purple states and districts who voted for the monstrosity," he told Reuters.

Groups allied to Republicans are already running digital ads against vulnerable Democrats, with TV ads coming in the months ahead.

"2014 will be a referendum on the failures of this administration," said Rep. Greg Walden, head of the House Republican campaign committee.

Some in the party, however, are warning conservative Tea Party Republicans not to push the government into another shutdown or risk a debt default in upcoming budget talks, out of fear of voter backlash.

"Republicans need to play it smart," said Republican strategist Charlie Black. "We can shift the focus to our own vulnerabilities if we participated in another government shutdown or resisted extending the debt limit."
Democrats already would have to beat historical odds to pick up congressional seats next November, since the party that controls the White House usually loses seats in these so-called mid-term elections.

Via: Newsmax

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BEDFORD: One month after the shutdown ended, Lee and Cruz are sitting pretty

It’s Nov. 16, 2013, and the partial government shutdown ended one month ago today.

In those four weeks, and the two prior, everything conservatives said would happen has happened. What’s more, the Democrats’ united stand against them has turned into a retreat — and is primed to become a rout — as they amend Obamacare’s disastrous rollout, President Barack Obama apologizes for his failures, and electorally vulnerable Democrats break ranks and flee.

Hell, even the polls that D.C.’s Republican pundits shrieked, wept and clawed over show the Grand Old Party has bounced back while the Democrats have fallen behind. Because, in the end, real people simply weren’t affected by the shutdown, so they won’t vote on it — a distinction Obamacare does not share.

It’s clear now that the whole shutdown thing could have been avoided if Mr. Obama had been willing to bend on his signature health-care law — something reality has since forced him to do, and something he will likely have to continue to do — instead of accusing the Republicans of being “terrorists” who are holding the country captive.

And rather than crashing, as the president predicted, the private sector survived just fine without government. Obama’s specific prediction — “I mean whatever effect Obamacare might have on the economy is far less than even a few days of government shutdown” — turned out to be precisely wrong. (VIDEO: It’s been two weeks and still no apocalypse, you guys)

Finally, the events of the last month have shown that Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee were correct to make a final stand against the law, and it’s really the president and his policies that are terrorizing the country. (RELATED: How Cruz, Lee and Paul shut down Obama’s agenda)

Because since Obamacare has come into effect, millions have seen their health-care plans cancelled; enrollment numbers have lagged 80 percent behind the White House’s predictions; every facet of the sign-up process has failed to deliver; and some of the very “navigators” who are supposed to make all that easier have been exposed as criminals.

And for the two weeks that preceded this debacle, the story is one of Republicans fighting with everything they had to save the country from what they saw coming.

Via: Daily Caller

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Poll: Republicans Now Tied With Democrats In Battle For Congress

Immediately after the federal government shutdown, Democrats claimed that their momentum improved their chances to recapture the House after next year's midterm elections. But a new poll released this week shows that momentum has vanished in the wake of the Obama administration's failures in implementing the health care law.

A new Quinnipiac University poll shows the parties are now tied on the generic ballot, with each party at 39 percent. A combined 23 percent of registered voters either prefer another candidate, wouldn't vote, or are undecided.

That is down from a 9-point Democratic lead in late September, immediately before Republican opposition to the health care law led to the shutdown. Independent voters, who split virtually evenly in the September survey, now back the Republican House candidate in their district by an 11-point margin, 37 percent to 26 percent. Among white voters, Republicans now have a 14-point lead, 46 percent to 32 percent. And, perhaps most strikingly, the poll shows no significant difference in vote intention by age, with the two parties virtually tied, even among voters under 30, who stuck with Democrats even in the 2010 GOP landslide.

Results from the same survey, released on Tuesday, showed President Obama with the lowest approval ratings of his presidency and a spike in opposition to the health care law. Obama's approval rating dropped 6 points, to 39 percent, since September. And the percentage of voters who say they support his signature legislative achievement dropped by the same margin, as the online health insurance exchange has been plagued by glitches and Americans in the individual insurance market have seen their policies canceled to comply with the law.

Via: National Journal

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A Partial, 3-Day Shutdown for HealthCare.Gov

Consumers won’t be able to find out their eligibility for federal health insurance subsidies on HealthCare.gov for much of the next three days because of scheduled maintenance, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said Friday.

The Internal Revenue Service will be conducting maintenance on a system that allows HealthCare.gov to check whether applicants qualify for federal subsidies. The system will go down Saturday night and won’t be available again until Tuesday morning, the spokeswoman said.

Even though applicants won’t be able to check their subsidy eligibility, they’ll still be able to create accounts, shop for health plans and enroll, CMS says. The troubledHealthCare.gov website will also be offline every day for its regular early-morning maintenance.

Government contractors continue to make upgrades to the site. Jeffrey Zients, the former budget official who’s been brought in to clean up the HealthCare.gov mess, said on a call with reporters Friday that even as new fixes have been made, increased traffic volume is “exposing new storage capacity and software issues.”

“We made progress this week although we hit roadblocks that impacted the user experience this week and slowed us down,” Mr. Zients said, adding that the government is still on track to having the site working for most users by the end of November.

Via: WSJ

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Promise breakers: Congressional lawmakers shirk shutdown pledge, keep paychecks

Nearly half of Congress promised to share federal workers’ pain during the partial government shutdown by forsaking pay — but now that the shutdown is over and employees got paid, many lawmakers say they deserve their own checks.

Some of the lawmakers said their vow to forgo pay was good only for as long as the shutdown lasted. When the shutdown ended after 16 days, they said, they had done their jobs and were entitled to their money.

Others among the nearly 250 who forsook their salaries said congressional approval of back pay for all federal workers, including the hundreds of thousands who were furloughed, meant lawmakers should be paid, too.

David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, said members of Congress are using technicalities to try to “wiggle out” of promises to the American people.

“People across the country, when they heard their member of Congress said they would be returning their pay during shutdown, that’s what they heard and what they expected,” Mr. Williams said. “For Congress to even try to backtrack on that just reduces the amount of trust people have in Congress, if that’s even possible.”

Members of Congress, who make $174,000 a year, were paid Sept. 30 and Oct. 30, so even those who said they were rejecting their salaries never missed a check because the shutdown lasted from Oct. 1 through Oct. 16.

Via: Washington Times

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Almost ONE MILLION drop out of labor force, unemployment rises to 7.3%

Not a good month at all when you look at the big picture, according to Zero Hedge:

But more importantly, the number of people not in the labor force exploded by nearly 1 million, or 932,000 to be exact, in just the month of October, to a record 91.5 million Americans! This was the third highest monthly increase in people falling out of the labor force in US history.

That’s nearly 1/3rd of the entire American population. Talk about fundamental transformation:

WASHINGTON TIMES – The federal shutdown last month caused a small rise in the unemployment rate to 7.3 percent but it was a surprisingly good month to find jobs in the private sector, the Labor Department reported Friday morning.

Businesses created more than 204,000 jobs in areas from retail and manufacturing to offices, hotels and restaurants. The department also detected 60,000 more jobs that were created in September and August in revisions to its previous employment reports — a sign that the job market has been healthier than previously assumed.

The burst of job creation last month — nearly twice as much as what economists had expected — more than offset an estimated 12,000 in job losses in the federal government, which brought the total number of federal job eliminations due to budget cuts to 94,000 in the last year.

Don’t worry…nothing to see here. Everything is swell. It’s the Winter of Recovery!

Via: The Right Scoop

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How Ted Cruz Won the Shutdown Drama

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his Republican colleagues won the shutdown drama in October.  However, the effects are still gradually rippling through the electorate.  And the full results will depend upon Republicans understanding the strategy (they don't) and continuing to implement conservatives' obvious plan consistently for maximum impact (unlikely).

Approval has dropped five percent for President Barack Obama since the October government shutdown, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal opinion survey.  Obama's disapproval rating has reached a toxic 51 percent -- as even Obama-worshiping NBC News admits.  Over 50 percent of voters disapproving is considered fatal for an incumbent office holder, at least if he were facing re-election.  In a sense he is -- facing the 2014 congressional elections.

Forty-seven percent now think that ObamaCare is a bad idea, up from forty-three percent in this same poll from early October.  The race for governor in Virginia has tightened up to within four percent, although Ken Cuccinelli's Mitt Romney-style campaign probably won't withstand the outrageous, unanswered lies told about him by the Democrat.

Skeptics ask: What was achieved by Ted Cruz with his 21-hour filibuster against ObamaCare on the floor of the U.S. Senate?  What did Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives accomplish by trying to delay or defund ObamaCare?

Via: American Thinker

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Deep sleep: ObamaCare site goes offline for extended maintenance

The problem-plagued ObamaCare website will be shut down Saturday night for “extended” repairs, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Technicians have shut down HealthCare.gov during weekends since the site launched Oct. 1 but just for a few overnight hours.

The site will go offline this weekend from 9 p.m. Saturday until 9 a.m. Sunday.

"The HealthCare.gov tech team is performing extended maintenance this weekend to improve network infrastructure and make enhancements to the online application and enrollment tools,” agency spokeswoman Joanne Peters said Saturday.   

The Obama administration says Americas can still apply for insurance coverage by calling a toll-free number available around the clock.

In recent weeks, the administration has brought in outside experts to assist in getting the site running so Americans can enroll before premiums kick in January 1, 2014.

Officials say their goal is to eliminate such problems as volume-related crashes, slow response times and incorrect information before the insurance policies kick in January 1, 2014.

Via: Fox News

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Jobless claims drop as California's glitch dissipates

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits declined largely as expected last week as the impact of a California computer glitch worked its way out of the report.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits declined by 10,000 

to a seasonally adjusted 340,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims for the prior week were not revised. Economists polled by Reuters had expected first-timeapplications to fall to 339,000 last week.

A Labor Department analyst said California, which had been dealing with a backlog, reported no carryover in claims last week from previous weeks.

Technical problems as California converted to a new computer system have distorted the claims data since September, which had made it hard to get a clear read of labor market conditions.

A 16-day partial shutdown of the federal government had also pushed up claims in recent weeks as furloughed workers applied for benefits, but this appeared to be diminishing.

Via: CBNC

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House leaves for two weeks, GOP promises Obamacare scrutiny on return

House Republicans on Thursday began a nearly two-week recess as they sought to solidify their political standing at home and clear the way for intense public scrutiny of Obamacare’s troubled rollout.

Still smarting from a politically damaging government shutdown that hogged the spotlight and obscured problems with the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans have deliberately shifted strategies. Rather than instigate high-stakes, politically risky confrontations with President Obama, they have embraced a more traditional, low-key approach that focuses on achieving incremental conservative reforms. This legislative strategy has a second, equally important purpose: It’s unlikely to distract from the GOP's aggressive investigation into Obamacare’s error-plagued implementation.

“People are focused on how bad Obamacare is. There’s no sense in putting up hyperpartisan bills that take attention away from that,” a senior Republican House aide told the Washington Examiner.

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., described the reoriented House GOP game plan this way: “In many respects, what I would characterize this period as is ... getting back to governing.”

Since the 16-day government shutdown ended on Oct. 17, House Republicans have passed a collection of largely noncontroversial bills like the Retail Investor Protection Act and the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2013, among others. None were crafted with an eye toward grabbing headlines and none are the sort that fuel a political movement. But for Republicans, that’s by design.

During the shutdown, public polls showed that voters soured on the Republican Party in part because they viewed the GOP as putting ideology ahead of governing. Because they run the House, Republicans have a responsibility for some of the mundane aspects of running the government, and they have attempted late this month to satisfy that charge while using it as a vehicle to enact conservative reforms that might attract bipartisan support.

Via: Washington Examiner

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