Insteadof using the budget to build a bridge across our turbulent economic waters,Congress is using the continuing resolution as a skipping stone to get usthrough. Unfortunately, you can only skip that stone so far. Sooner rather thanlater, the financial momentum is going to fail, and we’re going to sink to thebottom of the pond beneath the weight of this congressional folly.
Lobby Day: Concerned Women forAmerica Legislative Action Committee held a Project 535 Lobby Day on CapitolHill this week. Over 80 participants met Wednesday morning to join withConcerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee in lobbying bothchambers of Congress on America’s debt crisis.
House
Government Funding:At the end of last week, the House voted230-189 to fund the government thru December 15 and to defund ObamaCare.All Republicans voted “yes” except for Rep.Scott Rigell (R-Virginia) and two Democrats, Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) andMike McIntyre (D-North Carolina).
TheHouse waited for the Senate to act on its bill as the clock moved towardstoward shutdown.Midweek there were somediscussions about the possibility of considering a bill to address the debtlimit which the administration has said will need to be tackled by October17.
Ultimately,House leadership decided not to vote on the debt ceiling and to focus solely ontrying to keep the government funded.
Inthe wee hours of September 29, the House voted to fund the government throughDecember 15 to delay all major provisions of ObamaCare (which included theconscience mandate) and to repeal the medical device tax.This funding bill was sent to the Senate foraction the day before the government would shutdown.
Senate
Looming Shutdown: This week, the Senateconsidered the House-passed (H.J.Res. 59) Continuing Resolution (CR). The floorsaw an escalation in activity and was highly watched as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)took to the floor for 22 hours, discussing his concerns with passing a CR totemporarily fund the government without defunding ObamaCare. Despite his callto action, the Senate volleyed the CR back over to the House.
Beforesending the CR back, the Senate made drastic changes to the House version byincluding Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nevada) amendment, which eliminated thecontroversial defunding provision and changed the CR’s expiration date toNovember 15, as opposed to December 15.
The CRwas sent back to the House late Friday, and the Senate adjourned till Monday, leavingthe House with the “hot potato” and the sound of the clock ticking closer to agovernment shutdown.