Excerpted from Fox News:
The House voted Wednesday to approve a short-term bill ending the
partial government shutdown and raising the debt ceiling, sending the
deal to the president’s desk and capping one of the most bitter and
brutal political fights in recent memory.
The bill cleared the House on a 285-144 vote, lifted over the finish
line by a large chunk of Democrats. All House Democrats voted in favor
of the bill and 87 Republicans did as well. 144 Republicans voted
against it.
The Senate, where the plan originated, earlier voted 81-18 for the bill.
The result will come as a relief to furloughed federal workers, but
leaves unfinished any long-term agreement over the nation’s fiscal
future. As with past 11th-hour deals, this one kicks off the tough
decisions to a separate committee and sets up another set of deadlines.
Lawmakers could again be at loggerheads by mid-January.
After weeks of wrangling on the Hill, though, the bill passed
Wednesday after House Republican leaders backed down on their demands
that the legislation rein in ObamaCare.
To the dismay of many conservatives, the final product does not
include any major provisions pertaining to the health care law. But,
with the House a day earlier unable to muster support for an alternative
GOP plan, House leaders agreed to go along with the bipartisan Senate
bill.
President Obama, speaking between the two sets of votes, said he
would sign the bill “immediately” and “immediately” begin reopening
parts of the government that were closed.
He called on both sides of the aisle to work together in the future
on a range of issues, including stalled immigration legislation. “We’ve
got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,” he said.
The bill puts an end, for now, to the historic showdown that has kept
the government partly shuttered for more than two weeks. Putting
additional pressure on lawmakers to reach an agreement, Congress was
facing a Thursday deadline to raise the debt ceiling.
“We fought the good fight. We just didn’t win,” House Speaker John
Boehner said in an interview with Cincinnati radio station WLW-AM ahead
of the vote.
The final bill will fund the government through Jan. 15, and raise
the debt cap through Feb. 7. Plus it provides back-pay for furloughed
workers.
The plan does not include any provision relating to the ObamaCare
medical device tax or other unpopular parts of the law, as prior plans
did; instead it would include a single provision meant to verify the
income of those receiving ObamaCare subsidies. It would also instruct a
bipartisan budget committee to report back on a broader plan by
mid-December.
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Thursday, October 17, 2013
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