WASHINGTON — The Senate has dispatched with the House government funding bill, which would have funded the government while repealing the medical device tax and delaying Obamacare for one year, removing the amendments and sending back to the House a government funding bill with nothing else attached.
Within minutes of gaveling in on Tuesday afternoon, 10 hours before the government was set to shutdown, the Senate made good on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s vow that he would not accept the House bill — a promise he made before the House even voted in the wee hours of Sunday morning — and voted to table the amendments and send back a clean bill.
The bill the Senate is sending back to the House looks identical to the one it sent to the House last week, which the House amended to include the medical device tax repeal and the one-year delay.
If the House and Senate cannot reach an agreement in the remaining nine hours and change, there will be a partial shutdown of the government beginning at midnight on Tuesday.
Non-essential federal workers will go unpaid until the two parties can come to an agreement. Lawmakers will continue to be paid.