As GOP infighting persists, threat of shutdown grows

WASHINGTON — Options for keeping the federal government open narrowed Thursday as some of the most conservative Republicans in the House rebuffed proposals from Speaker John Boehner, who had aimed to break a stalemate over the federal budget.

The opposition from conservatives to any measures that fall short of their goals of cutting federal spending or dismantling President Barack Obama’s health care law left the Ohio Republican with little room to maneuver as a Monday night deadline approached for providing money to keep federal agencies running.

The administration has already started plans for a possible shutdown and intends to notify federal employees Friday about whether they will be furloughed if nonessential functions are halted.

Boehner emerged froma closed- door Republican strategy session trying to drag the president into a broader debate over fiscal policy as it became clear that Congress was running out of time.

“The president says, ‘ I’m not going to negotiate,’ ” the speaker said. “Well, I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work thatway.”

A top White House official compared House Republicans to terrorists and said the president would not bargain with Congress on the need to raise the debt limit by Oct. 17 to keep paying the nation’s bills.

“What we’re not for is negotiating with people with a bomb strapped to their chest,” Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to the president, said on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”

With the collapse of the Republican strategy in the Senate to stop the Affordable Care Act, debate has shifted to theHouse, where lawmakers are planning a weekend session with no clear path forward.

Senate Republicans had hoped to bounce the government funding bill back to the House, where their GOP colleagues could attach more modest attempts to chisel away at the health care law, such as repealing the law’s medical device tax or the mandate that Americans have health insurance or pay a fine in 2014.

But the most conservative House Republicans shrugged off those ideas Thursday as inadequate.

Democratic senators have made it clear they will remain united against efforts to dismantle the president’s top legislative achievement.

Boehner hoped to open a new front by shifting the focus to the debt limit legislation. The Republican leadership loaded up the debt bill with a proposed one- year delayof the health care law and other demands, including that the administration approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. But conservatives said the bill did not fulfill leadership promises to cut spending and balance the budget in 10 years.