By David Morgan and Makini Brice
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government looked almost certain to enter a partial shutdown on Sunday, as House Republicans and Senate Democrats held starkly different courses on funding.
The Democratic-majority Senate was planning another procedural vote on a stopgap bill to fund the government through Nov. 17, which has been advancing with broad bipartisan support, and which the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has rejected so far.
House Republican lawmakers on Friday blocked their own party’s stopgap bill, known as a “continuing resolution,” or CR.
That bill included multiple conservative policy additions that Democrats opposed, and had no chance of gaining the Senate support it would need to become law.
Infighting among Republicans, who control the House of Representatives by a 221-212 margin, has brought the United States to the brink of its fourth partial shutdown in a decade, as the chamber has been unable to pass legislation that would maintain open the government beyond the start of the fiscal year on October 1.
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will lack the funds they need to do their jobs if both chambers do not send a spending bill for Democratic President Joe Biden to sign by 12:01 p.m. (0401 GMT) on Sunday.
Federal agencies have already drawn up detailed plans specifying which services should continue, such as airport screening and border patrols, and which should be closed, such as scientific research and nutritional aid to 7 million poor mothers.
Most of the more than 4 million Government employees would not be paid, whether they worked or not.
House Republicans, emerging from a closed-door party meeting on Saturday, said they expected to vote in favor of measures that would ensure members of the military, border security and the Federal Aviation Administration were paid during the closing. These measures would only go into effect if the Senate approves them and Biden signs them into law.
“We will vote to keep our troops paid and fully operational,” said Rep. Darrell Issa.
Some hardline Republicans said a shutdown was worth it to achieve their goals.
(Reporting by David Morgan and Makini Brice, Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing in Spanish by Juana Casas)
Source: Ambito
