GOP Leaders Confounded on Stopgap Spending Bill

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

GOP Leaders Confounded on Stopgap Spending Bill

WASHINGTON September 13, 2013 (AP)
By ANDREW TAYLOR Associated Press

GOP leaders eager to avoid blame for a possible government shutdown next month appear confounded by conservatives' passion for using fast-approaching deadlines to derail the implementation of President Barack Obama's health care law.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, conceded Thursday his plan was all but dead for quickly passing a temporary spending bill that also defunds Obamacare, make the Senate vote on each idea separately and then send only the portion for keeping the government open to the White House for the president's signature.

Meanwhile, new freelance effort by rank-and-file Republicans to condition keeping the government open or preventing a debt ceiling default on delaying Obamacare for a year hit a brick wall of opposition from Democrats vowing to never let the health care law be delayed or unraveled.

Nonetheless, some Republicans floated the idea of postponing all of the unimplemented portions of the new law for a year — including a requirement that virtually everyone buys health insurance and with new tax subsidies to help many people pay for it — in exchange for raising the government's borrowing cap and easing tens of billions of dollars in broad, automatic spending cuts.

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/gop-leaders-confounded-stopgap-spending-bill-20242430

[pscot]

1. What a clown show

It's like the Ukraine or something. It won't be long before fist fights erupt on the House floor

[xfundy]

2. Having to actually DO anything confounds them.

Hopefully the people have had enough of "argle bargle" day in, day out.

[LonePirate]

3. Or Boehner could do the right thing and pass a standalone debt limit increase bill

Surely there are about 17-20 sane Republicans who would vote for this once the leadership whipped them into action.

[polichick]

4. GOP leaders are confounded by the shape of the earth.