By Peninsula Daily News and New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON —
A series of rapid-fire back and forth legislative maneuvers by the House, Senate and White House late Monday failed to break a bitter budget standoff over President Obama’s health care law, setting in motion the first government shutdown in nearly two decades.
Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, dismissed as game-playing a late-hour House proposal to begin conference committee negotiations.
The impasse meant that 800,000 federal workers were to be furloughed and more than a million others would be asked to work without pay.
The Office of Management and Budget issued orders that “agencies should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations” because Congress had failed to act.
READ MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/us/politics/congress-shutdown-debate.html?emc=edit_na_20131001
