US shutdown looms as Republicans play hardball

The US may be staring at a shutdown of the federal government, with the time for Congress to pass a budget before a Monday midnight deadline growing shorter as lawmakers yesterday, gave no signs yesterday of any step in the direction of resolution of the crisis. 

Though leaders of both parties said they wanted to avoid the first federal closure since 1996, their public stance seemed aimed more at pointing fingers for the impasse.

House speaker John Boehner (Republican, Ohio) urged senate leaders to pass legislation that the Republican-controlled House had approved early last morning, which would allow for funding of the  government through mid-December.

That prospect seemed remote, as the House legislation included a one-year delay of the new federal health law that Democrats had vowed to reject, as also a repeal of the new law's tax on medical devices.

Meanwhile, government workers braced for another possible shutdown, while Americans were left wondering whether they would get their mail.

According to Democrats, Boehner himself could take the initiative to put an end to the stalemate by asking the House to pass the senate plan for extension of federal funding, sans provisions aimed at the health law.

According to commentators, a move of the kind would raise the hackles of conservatives in Boehner's party and likely materialise only at the last minute, after the health law had been fought to the end.

However, commentators say with rifts in the Republican party raging stronger than ever, top leaders were fighting amongst themselves over the pending double threats of a government shutdown and debt default.

The Republican party's rifts could end up with a shutdown, severely hurt the economy throwing hundreds of thousands of federal employees out of work and, in the produce another sorry spectacle of Washington dysfunction. 

Many Republicans, though, worry over the public impact of holding the government to ransom, a tactic that might derail GOP hopes of taking control of the senate in next year's midterm elections.

Long-serving lawmakers such as senator John McCain of Arizona are pushing the compromise line to keep the government open as the prudent step for the party.

They warn of the single-minded focus of hardline factions of using threat of a government shutdown as leverage to win concessions on president Obama's health care law, would be self-destructive.

Meanwhile, the hardliners represented by new firebrands like senator Ted Cruz of Texas, are looking to rewrite the Washington rulebook and create a new political reality according to some commentators.