Good morning! It’s hard to believe that just two days have passed since Friday, when hopes were rising of a compromise that would bring federal employees back to work and raise the nation’s borrowing limit in time to avoid a crippling default. Now, talks have broken down between the Obama administration and House Republicans, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has rejected a proposal by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that included a six-month continuing resolution. “There are two good things in it,” Reid told reporters yesterday. “Number one, it opens the government, number two, it extends the debt ceiling. Other than…
Yearly Archives: 2013
Two Virginia lawmakers are seeking quick Senate action on legislation that would assure back pay to furloughed federal employees once the partial government shutdown ends. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., passed the House last Saturday 407-0, but has stalled in the Senate, where Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has voiced reservations about a fast-track vote. In a Friday letter, Moran and Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., the bill’s lead Republican co-sponsor, urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to work with their “respective caucuses to overcome any objections to advance this important legislation.”
Good morning! It’s another working (cue the snarky comments) weekend for members of Congress as news accounts describe lots of talking but no consensus on how to end the partial government shutdown and raise the nation’s debt ceiling in time to avoid default as early as next week. Attention is now focused on the Senate, where Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., are working on legislation that would fund government through the end of March. Sequester-related cuts would continue, but agencies would have more flexibility in apportioning them, according to details reported by McClatchy. The plan would also raise the borrowing…
Good morning! For hundreds of thousands of federal employees rounding out their first full week on furlough or else working with no paycheck in sight, this is not a happy Friday. For those paying attention to what’s happening in Washington, however, there was plenty to watch yesterday. The good news: House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the Obama administration are talking. The bad news: No one seems to be sure where the conversation is heading. Although the stock market responded with a big upward bounce, Stan Collender, a veteran budget watcher, isn’t especially optimistic. In an interview last night, Collender called…
Good morning! As many observers predicted, the government shutdown crisis has now morphed into the will-Congress-raise-the-debt-ceiling-in-time-to-avert-a-global-financial-panic crisis. Although there are some glimmers of movement, it’s less clear in what direction. If the presumption is that both stalemates will be settled together, however, that means furloughed feds will likely remain out of work through at least part of next week. The Washington Post, for example, reports today that key congressional Republicans are showing willingness to back down from their insistence on delaying or defunding implementation of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) as the price of reopening shuttered agencies. But with…
Good morning! For several hundred thousand federal employees, it’s another day of unpaid time off with-once again—no end on the horizon as President Obama, House Republicans and Senate Democrats all remain seemingly dug into their respective positions. There’s also no immediate sign that Congress is going to give final passage to legislation that would ensure retroactive pay for furloughed feds once the shutdown ends. After Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, signaled objections to fast-track consideration of the back-pay bill passed by the House on Saturday, the House GOP leadership tried again yesterday, linking a separate back-pay measure to legislation that would…
The big news today is what’s not happening—i.e., there is no indication of any deal in sight to reopen the government this week. In addition, a bill to ensure back pay to hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees appears to be hitting a Senate slowdown. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., raced through the Republican-run House on a 407-0 vote Saturday; supporters had hoped for a similar glide through the Democratic controlled-Senate. But on Monday, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called it “premature” to move ahead with the back pay bill while Democrats were refusing to take up…
After sailing through the House on a 407-0 vote Saturday, a bill to guarantee back pay to furloughed federal employees now appears to have become a Senate bargaining chip in the stalemate over ending the partial government shutdown. “I think it’s really premature to be dealing with that until we deal with the underlying problem,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said today, according to the website for Roll Call. “”We’ve offered a number of bills to try to alleviate some of the hardship, and . . . they’ve all been swatted down out of hand.” Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate…
Good morning! Today we launch a new–and presumably temporary–feature on FedLine: A regular (as events warrant) rundown of all the noteworthy shutdown-related news that we can find. Given what happened over the weekend, we’re playing catch-up today. As always, would appreciate your help in keeping federal employees informed on what’s happening across government. You can email tips at any time to shutdownstories@federaltimes.com. Feel free to offer suggestions on how to make this feature useful. We’ll start by calling it “Shutdown Watch,” but are definitely open to something more original. So, we start Day 7 of the partial shutdown with what…
Some good news could be coming in the next day or two for a lot of furloughed Defense Department civilian employees. Under the “Pay our Military Act “signed by President Obama this week, DoD not only gains the authority to pay uniformed military on time, but to do the same for civilian employees whom Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel determines are “providing support” to those troops. And the word is that the Pentagon also plans to use that new authority aggressively to return a significant number of civilians to work. Exactly how many is unclear, but FedLine feels comfortable saying that…