LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Following a 16-day federal government shutdown, Congress on Wednesday approved legislation to fully restore services, with President Barack Obama signing the bill within hours of its passage.
The White House issued a statement reporting that said Obama signed H.R. 2775, the “Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014,” which provides fiscal year 2014 appropriations for projects and activities of the federal government through Jan. 15, 2014.
The statement said the effective time for the continuing resolution begins on Oct. 1.
H.R. 2775 also extends the nation's debt limit through Feb. 7, 2014, the White House said.
Lake County's two members of Congress, Mike Thompson and John Garamendi, faulted radicals in Congress for causing the shutdown, with both men calling for a cooperative, bipartisan way forward rather than a continuation of political brinksmanship.
The US Senate passed the bill 81-18 on Wednesday. After that vote, House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement saying that House Republicans would not block the bipartisan agreement.
“In addition to the risk of default, doing so would open the door for the Democratic majority in Washington to raise taxes again on the American people and undo the spending caps in the 2011 Budget Control Act without replacing them with better spending cuts. With our nation's economy still struggling under years of the president's policies, raising taxes is not a viable option,” he said.
However, Boehner indicated that the fight centering on the Affordable Care Act – one of the sticking points that had led to the shutdown – was not over.
“Our drive to stop the train wreck that is the president's health care law will continue,” he said. “We will rely on aggressive oversight that highlights the law's massive flaws and smart, targeted strikes that split the legislative coalition the president has relied upon to force his health care law on the American people.”
The House's Wednesday night vote, which came earlier than anticipated, passed the legislation 285-144, with 198 Democrats and 87 Republicans approving it, according to a voting tally from Thompson's office.
Thompson's office reported that the bill requires income verification for recipients of subsidies under the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, provides back pay to furloughed federal workers and requires a bipartisan, bicameral budget conference to come up with long-term spending plans by Dec. 13.
Since the shutdown, federal services that had been shut down locally included the Mendocino National Forest's offices and campgrounds, and the Lake Family Resource Center had to curtail services to families in need due to impacts on its federal funding, as Lake County News has reported.
In other parts of Garamendi's district, his office said that more than 1,000 civilian employees at Travis and Beale Air Force bases were furloughed; more than 200 workers at the US Department of Agriculture's Davis headquarters were furloughed and service centers were closed, meaning farmers couldn’t get loans and other services; the Sacramento, Colusa and Sutter National Wildlife Refuges were closed; and the Dixon Stand Down for struggling veterans had to scramble for money when a Department of Labor loan was delayed.
Thompson said the bipartisan agreement brings “this reckless and unnecessary government shutdown and default crisis to an end.”
He blamed “Tea Party radicals” for keeping the government closed because they are obsessed with derailing health care reform, a fight he said they have lost nearly 50 times in Congress, once in a national election and once in the Supreme Court.
“The negative impacts of this strategically planned crisis have been staggering,” he said. “It has cost our economy $4.8 billion. It has prevented Congress from focusing on important national issues such as job creation, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the Farm Bill, a balanced budget, economic growth and fiscal responsibility. It has eroded the faith people have in our institution of representative government, both at home and around the world. And it achieved nothing.”
He said the deal avoids the worst, adding, “It’s far from the best we could have done.”
Rather than governing “from crisis to crisis,” Thompson said the best way to get the nation's debt and deficit under control “is through a balanced approach that cuts spending, requires everyone to pay their fair share, creates jobs, and protects the longevity of important programs like Social Security and Medicare.”
Garamendi expressed his concern that while “economic freefall” was averted, “the real damage has already been done to our economy, millions of Americans’ livelihoods and investor confidence.”
He said the compromise once again kicks the can down the road, “although at least this time we will have a Budget Conference Committee where hopefully members of Congress actually interested in governance can negotiate, hash out our differences and pass a lasting budget. That’s a process I’ve been calling for since April. If it is once again derailed by extremists inside and outside of Congress, we’ll face another manufactured crisis in January.”
Garamendi said the Tea Party's action over the last three years – which he called “the reckless hostage taking of the American economy” – “is unprecedented in modern times.” He said it is harming the nation's economic recovery, destroying jobs and making international investors wonder if the United States is as safe a place to invest as it once was.
He said there are reasonable voices on both sides of the aisle that should be heard.
Moving forward, Garamendi said he's hoping the Budget Conference Committee will form a rational, bipartisan framework for funding the government.
“We can use this process to develop budgets that responsibly manage the long-term challenge of our deficit while also protecting our most vulnerable and making sure the government invests in priorities like education, infrastructure, research, and setting the stage for American manufacturing,” Garamendi said. “These are the building blocks of a healthier economy capable of creating good jobs.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.