Government shutdown expected to end soon

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 16 October 2013 at 12:00 am

WASHINGTON – A budget shutdown that closed national parks and the local wildlife refuge, while putting 800,000 federal employees on furlough including those at the Farm Service Agency, is expected to be over in time for the U.S. to raise the national debt ceiling and avoid a default. That needs to happen by tomorrow’s deadline.

The Senate has a deal to reopen the federal government and avoid a national default and the Republican-majority in Congress is expected to go along with the deal.

House Speaker John Boehner said the Republicans will keep appealing to President Obama to tackle the national debt and ease the financial pain of new healthcare law.

“That fight will continue,” Boehner said in a statement this afternoon.“But blocking the bipartisan agreement reached today by the members of the Senate will not be a tactic for us. In addition to the risk of default, doing so would open the door for the Democratic majority in Washington to raise taxes again on the American people and undo the spending caps in the 2011 Budget Control Act without replacing them with better spending cuts.

“With our nation’s economy still struggling under years of the president’s policies, raising taxes is not a viable option. Our drive to stop the train wreck that is the president’s health care law will continue. We will rely on aggressive oversight that highlights the law’s massive flaws and smart, targeted strikes that split the legislative coalition the president has relied upon to force his health care law on the American people.”