Federal Government Back in Business
Thursday, October 17th, 2013October 17, 2013
Some 800,000 federal employees went back to work this morning after a 16-day shutdown of the United States government. The political stand-off between the Republican majority in the House of Representatives and Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama ended just minutes before a midnight deadline after which the government’s ability to borrow money by selling bonds would have expired.
A bill brokered by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D., Nevada) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Kentucky) finances the operations of government until Jan. 15, 2014, and raises the nation’s debt limit through the middle of February. The Senate passed the measure last night by an 81-to-18 vote. The House followed suit, passing the bill by a vote of 285-to-144. Eighty-seven House Republicans broke ranks to join a united Democratic caucus in approving the measure.

An attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act by hardline conservatives in the House of Representatives collapsed on October 16, when both houses of Congress passed legislation financing the federal government and raising the debt limit. (© Brooks Kraft, Corbis)
Passage of the measure ended a stalemate led by hardline conservatives, generally members of the House Tea Party caucus. The caucus pushed their Republican leaders to use the double threat of a shutdown and a default on the national debt to defund the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare.”
Political experts generally agree that pushing the federal government to the edge of a fiscal meltdown for political gain was a major misstep by Congressional Republicans. A Washington Post-ABC public opinion poll taken earlier this week found that 74 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress were handling the negotiations. A Pew poll taken yesterday found that public approval of the Tea Party was in free fall. Only 20 percent of polled Republicans now support the Tea Party movement. The Wall Street credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s announced yesterday that the shutdown had drained at least $24 billion out of the already fragile U.S. economy. Conservative radio pundit Rush Limbaugh described the Republican shutdown and subsequent surrender as “One of the greatest political disasters I’ve ever seen.”
Additional World Book articles:
- National budget
- Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)