Shutdown
As a midnight deadline passed, the U.S. government ran out of funds to keep much of the government running. The House on Monday repeatedly refused to vote on a Senate-passed bill to avoid a shutdown. Sen. Bernie Sanders decried the House push to use the shutdown as a lever – blackmail he called it –to try to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Late in the night, President Barack Obama signed last-minute legislation to ensure that members of the military and personnel at the Department of Homeland Security get paid even during a shutdown.
Earlier Monday night, Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, introduced legislation to ensure that benefits and pensions aren’t cut during a protracted shutdown.
