In announcing the lawmakers’ meeting with Obama, the White House said the president would repeat a vow he has made consistently in recent weeks: “We will not pay a ransom for Congress reopening the government and raising the debt limit.”
The prospect of a default and the possibility of a follow-on recession largely overshadowed the partial government shutdown that has furloughed 350,000 federal workers. Government research labs have been affected, veterans’ services curtailed and much of the Occupational Safety and Health Organization shuttered.
With federal parks off-limits to visitors, the impact on tourism prompted several governors to petition Interior Secretary Sally Jewell successfully to permit the states to finance some reopenings.
The shutdown began on Oct. 1, at the beginning of the budget year, after the House adopted a strategy of conditioning broad federal spending legislation to a proposal to starve the three-year-old health care law of funding.
The president and Democrats refused, and the long struggle began, merging quickly with the fast-approaching deadline for a debt limit increase.
In the two weeks since, public opinion polls have charted a steady decline in Republican approval ratings, and an increase in the
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