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Democrats Accuse Republicans of Forcing Government Shutdown Over Ideological
Issues

   Cindy Saine | Capitol Hill  April 07, 2011
   House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid emerge
   after meeting at White House with President Obama regarding the budget,
   possible government shutdown, April 6, 2011

Photo: AP

   House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry
   Reid, D-Nev., walk out to speak to reporters after their meeting at the
   White House in Washington with President Obama regarding the budget,
   possible government shutdown, April 6, 2011

   U.S. Senate Democrats say that Republican and Democratic lawmakers
   essentially have agreed on how much spending to cut and where the money
   should come from for the federal government budget. But they say
   Republicans are holding up legislation that would avert a partial
   government shutdown when current funding for spending expires on Friday
   because of ideological issues.
   Democratic President Barack Obama, Democratic Senate Majority Leader
   Harry Reid and Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner
   met Wednesday night to try to reach an agreement on a bill to fund the
   government, and they are meeting at the White House again Thursday -
   just one day before the deadline for a partial government shutdown.
   Reid said Democrats and Republicans have agreed on spending cuts that
   Congressional Republicans are demanding. But he said there still is not
   a budget agreement because Republicans insist on not funding several
   programs that Democrats favor, such as Planned Parenthood - a national
   reproductive health care provider that offers abortion counseling.
   "They have made a decision to shut down the government because they
   want to make it harder, for example, for a woman to get a cancer
   screening? Do they really want to shut down the government because the
   Tea Party [a conservative and libertarian wing of the Republican Party]
   does not want scientists to make sure the air we breathe is clean and
   pure?," Reid said.

AP

   U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. (File)

   Reid's fellow Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin agreed and called on
   Boehner to reign in the fiscally-conservative Tea Party members of his
   caucus who are calling for the policy directives on issues such as
   Planned Parenthood and the regulation of greenhouse gases.
   "it is time for Speaker Boehner to acknowledge that we have an
   agreement - we are going to reduce the deficit for the remainder of
   this year," Durbin said. "And he has to tell his Tea Party
   'roughriders' to put their horses in the barn. Save this argument for
   another day."
   Republican House Speaker John Boehner defended the policy directives
   that his party is attaching to the budget resolution, saying that
   budget bills often come with directives that specify how the federal
   government can spend its money.
   With Democrats in the Senate and the White House focused on trying to
   reach an agreement to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal
   year, the House is planning to vote later Thursday on a one-week
   continuing resolution that would keep the government running past
   Friday.
   Boehner said the House is likely to vote on a stopgap, one-week
   resolution to fund the federal government that would also fund U.S.
   military operations for the rest of the fiscal year.
   "As a precautionary matter, the House today will pass a troop funding
   bill that would fund the Department of Defense through September,"
   Boehner said.
   Boehner said the troop funding bill is crucial because the United
   States is involved in military operations in Libya, Iraq and
   Afghanistan.
   Democrats, who control the Senate, and President Obama say they will
   not consider the measure, which makes $12 billion in new spending
   reductions for keeping the government running for one week. And so the
   budget showdown continues, with Friday as the deadline for a partial
   government shutdown that would affect services for millions of
   Americans and leave some 800,000 federal employees furloughed until
   funding is approved.

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