Dems block vote on spending bill
Schumer: No ‘poison-pill riders’ from GOP
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats late Thursday blocked a quick vote on a short-term spending bill to keep the government open, roiling Washington with brinkmanship less than 30 hours before a midnight Friday deadline for a shutdown and President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office.
The wrangling over reaching a deal to keep the government funded unfolded as the White House and Republican leaders worked to wring out enough votes for the House health care bill, but remained shy of the support they’d need to fully rouse the measure back to life.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pressed for an agreement on the short-term bill that will carry through next week, giving lawmakers more time to complete negotiations on a $1 trillion government-wide spending bill for the remainder of the 2017 budget year.
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., insisted that any vote will only occur when Republicans abandon efforts to add provisions on abortion, financial regulations and the environment to the legislation.
“Our position has been clear and it’s nothing new. No poison-pill riders,” Schumer said.
The House is scheduled to vote on the one-week extension on Friday morning and the Senate could still vote ahead of the deadline.
In addition to the inability to come up with a spending deal that could pass ahead of Trump’s 100day mark, the House GOP looked unlikely to give Trump a victory on health care before then. A revised health care bill has won the support of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, holdouts on an earlier version that collapsed last month, but GOP leaders were struggling to round up votes from moderate-leaning Republicans.
“I don’t knowif it’s bringing anyone over,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who said he had been lobbied by leadership but still opposed the legislation because it undoes an expansion of Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. “There’s much of Obamacare that has to be fixed. That part of it is critical,” Smith said.
Trump himself unleashed a tweetstorm criticizing Democrats involved in negotiations on the spending bill, accusing them of trying to close national parks and jeopardizing the safety of U.S. troops.
“As families prepare for summer vacations in our National Parks — Democrats threaten to close them and shut down the government. Terrible!” Trump tweeted.
“Democrats jeopardizing the safety of our troops to bail out their donors from insurance companies. It is time to put #AmericaFirst,” he wrote.
Democrats dismissed such accusations.
“We are never going to shut government down. In fact, we don’t even have the power to do so,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Referring to Republicans, she said: “They have the majority. They have the president. They have the Senate. They have the House. Any shutting down of government, the ball is in their court.”
The recast health care billwould let states escape a requirement under the Affordable Care Act that insurers charge healthy and seriously ill customers the same rates. They could also be exempted from the ACA’s mandate that insurers cover a list of services like maternity care, and fromits ban against insurers charging older customers more than triple their rates for younger ones.
Overall, the legislation would cut the Medicaid program for the poor, eliminate Obamacare fines for people who don’t buy insurance and provide generally skimpier subsidies.
Democrats remained solidly against the legislation, which they said would make health care coverage less available and costlier. Pelosi told reporters that for Republicans, voting for the bill “is going to be doo-doo stuck to their shoe for a long time.”
Conservatives embraced the revisions as a way to lower people’s health care expenses. Moderates saw them as diminishing coverage because insurers could make policies for their most ill — and expensive — customers too costly for them to afford.
“No bill is going to solve every issue,” said Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., who crafted the newest edition of the legislation with Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who heads the hard-line Freedom Caucus. MacArthur is a leader of the roughly 50-member moder-ate House Tuesday Group, but it is unclear that he has won over many of their votes and he conceded that some lawmakers “are struggling to get to yes.”
Two moderate Pennsylvania Republicans affirmed Thursday they would vote no— Reps. Patrick Meehan, who’d been publicly undeclared, and Ryan Costello, who’d said he’d have opposed the original bill.
Nonetheless, leaders in both parties projected certainty that a deal would ultimately be reached on the spending legislation, which covers all government agencies and is leftover business from last year.
“Talks on government funding legislation have continued throughout the week on a bipartisan, bicameral basis,” said McConnell, adding that the short-term extension will allow time for a final agreement to be completed and voted on nextweek.