The US Government appeared headed for a partial shutdown Monday after the Republican-controlled lower house approved a budget bill that Democrats in the Senate and the White House vowed to reject.
A government shutdown would be the first since 1996 and would begin Tuesday, the first day of the new fiscal year, unless lawmakers find a last-minute solution in Monday sessions.
The Republican majority in the House of Representatives added two controversial amendments to a budget bill previously approved in the Senate. Those would delay until January 2015 the full implementation of President Barack Obama’s health insurance reform plan and kill a tax on medical devices intended to help fund it.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said the House version would be rejected, and the White House signalled that Obama would veto the bill even if it got through the Senate.
The administration said the shutdown would have potentially damaging economic consequences.
It would force federal agencies to furlough at least 825,000 employees, out of a workforce of more than 2 million and would shutter national parks.
Essential services related to national security, mail delivery, air traffic control and law enforcement would continue.
Congress was in recess on Sunday after a late Saturday session. The Senate was set to reconvene at 1800 GMT Monday to take up the House version before the budget deadline of midnight Monday (0400 GMT Tuesday).
The House bill is an extension of current budget funding for the government for the first few months of the new fiscal year. A faction of conservative Republicans saw it as a last-ditch opportunity to tie it to the health law, ensuring a stalemate with the Democrat-controlled Senate.
The Senate is expected to strip out the amendments added by the House. That would send the bill back to the House, which could vote on the Senate version at the last minute.
Leaders of both parties said they hoped to avoid the first federal closure in 17 years.
New health-insurance markets for individuals, one of the pillars of the law that approved by Congress more than three years ago, were to become available from Tuesday regardless of Congress’ final decision on budget legislation.