Obama Rejects Offer to Ease Shutdown

The White House has rejected a Republican offer to re-open portions of the US government on Tuesday as the first shutdown in 17 years has closed landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty and threw thousands of federal workers out of work, Al Jazeera.net report said.

Al Jazeera said the back and forth offered no sign that President Obama and the Republicans can soon end a standoff over health care that has set aside everything from trade negotiations to medical research and raised new concerns about Congress’s ability to perform its most basic duties.

Reports aid the Republican offer would restore funding for national parks, veterans services, and the District of Columbia. However,report added, other government services would remain unfunded.

While the selective funding approach appeared to unite conservative and moderate Republicans for now, the White House said Obama would veto it, report said.

The Democrats who are in the Senate said they would reject it before it reached Obama’s desk, Al Jazeera.net reported.

Reports said Republicans who control the House of Representatives has said Obama could not complain about the impact of the shutdown while refusing to negotiate. “The White House position is unsustainably hypocritical,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

The partial shutdown meant that 800,000 “non-essential” workers were forced to remain home on Tuesday, Al Jazeera.net said. The Republican-controlled House has passed two spending bills in recent days, both of which have been rejected by the Democrat-led Senate.

House Republicans has asked for a conference on the budget with the Senate, but the upper house of Congress killed that proposal when it met on Tuesday morning, Al Jazeera report said.

Senate majority leader and Democrat Harry Reid has said that he would not negotiate as long as the House linked the budget law to the healthcare law.

The Tuesday’s Senate vote was the fourth time since this political conflict began that the body had rejected a House Republican bill or proposal, reports said.

Al Jazeera said some critical parts of the government, including the military and air traffic control, will remain open. The shutdown will, however, keep hundreds of thousands of federal workers at home and unpaid.

Reports said it could affect government services including park management, food assistance for children and pregnant women and federal home loan programmes. Federal agencies, such as NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and others, were also affected.

In a statement, Obama spoke bluntly about House Republicans: “You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what you’re supposed to be doing anyway, or just because there’s a law there that you don’t like.”

Speaking of the healthcare law that undergoes a major expansion on Tuesday, Obama has said: “That funding is already in place. You can’t shut it down.”

Al Jazeera said the Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, responded a few hours later on the House floor. “The American people don’t want a shutdown and neither do I,” he said. However, Boehner added, the new healthcare law was having “a devastating impact … something has to be done”.

House Republicans have sought a year’s delay in a requirement in the healthcare law for individuals to buy coverage. However, in recent days several Republican senators and House members have said they would be willing to vote for straightforward legislation with no healthcare-related provisions, Al Jazeera said.

Reports said the last shutdown in the winter of 1995-96 severely damaged Republican election prospects. Stock markets around the world reacted resiliently to the shutdown on Tuesday morning, with analysts saying significant damage to the US economy was unlikely unless the shutdown lasted more than a few days, Al Jazaeera.net said.

Following the falling day before the US shutdown deadline, European stocks mostly recovered. In Asia, stocks were mixed, while Wall Street was expected to open slightly higher, Al Jazeera.net reported.

Source: Al Jazeera.net