After the Senate stayed in to vote against any proposal sent over by the House (which Majority Leader Reid indicated would happen) the federal government officially shut down last night at 12:01. The debate is now over how long the shutdown will last and will the House give up on defunding or changing Obamacare. The last movement by the House was a push to go to Conference on the Continuing Resolution (CR) which the Senate rejected.
This is the first shutdown in DC since 1996. The first lasted five days in November 1995, until the White House agreed to congressional demands to balance the budget within seven years. As expected, talks on implementing that agreement failed, and the second shutdown lasted 21 days, from Dec. 15, 1995, to Jan. 6., 1996.
This is different – there is no bipartisan agreement on a framework to dismantle Obamacare like there was to balance the budget 17 years ago – so in this case someone has to blink and history would prove that House Republicans are going to have to give or this could go on awhile. In 1996, Republicans lost the messaging and ended up caving in to President Clinton on the budget debate 17 years ago – and ended up losing 9 seats in the next election. There are some that believe this could help the atmosphere in Washington if there are some dire consequences because it will give Leadership a tool to use in asserting their authority over their members – along with easing the pressure over the Debt Ceiling by seeing what happens.
Some believe that this could cost Speaker Boehner his majority. Speaker Boehner is one of less than dozen members currently serving that were part of the 1995-96 shutdown. Congressman Doc Hastings of our delegation is the only House Republican from WA who was here in 1996 – along with Congressman McDermott.
What happens next:
- Federal employees, including Congressional staff, report to work today for a few hours to secure their workspaces but have received notices if they are furloughed or not.
- There is optimism that this will be a short-term shutdown. Lasting through the week, maybe into the weekend. At the end of the day, it is likely Republicans will give and take the fight to another issue, because Senate Dem’s and the President are not going to cave on changing, not funding or slowing down Obamacare. With more than hundreds of thousands of employees furloughed and services slowed down, Republicans are likely to again lose the messaging war. People want their museums open, zoos open, services up and running – and Obamacare isn’t real yet with enrollment opening up today.
- There is very little traffic this morning in DC with the 800,000 federal workers off the job. Congress will decide if these furloughed employees, including Congressional staff, are paid when they settle this. If history repeats itself, they will all get paid. The unions will make noise on this.
- House and Senate Leadership continue to talk and see if they can reach a deal or Republicans give in. I think it’s the latter.
Again, if this shutdown is just a few days it will have little impact on WSU, just slow things down – if it goes for a length of time, then that could change and we could see an impact.