WASHINGTON — Get ready for a federal shutdown.
The US government hurtled toward a shutdown early Sunday morning when the House voted 231 – 192 to add a one-year delay of ObamaCare to a spending bill needed to keep the government open.
The doomed measure was then batted back to the Democratic-run Senate, which isn’t due to meet until Monday afternoon, and which has vowed not to approve any changes to President Obama’s health-care law.
Obama, too, promised to veto the measure should it somehow reach his desk.
If a federal budget isn’t passed by Monday’s 11:59 p.m. deadline, Uncle Sam will partially close down for the first time in 17 years.
“As I have said repeatedly, the Senate will reject any Republican attempt to force changes to the Affordable Care Act,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), deriding the midnight House vote as “pointless.”
House Republicans also amended the spending bill with a repeal of a tax on medical devices — a widely unpopular 2.3 percent levy that helps fund the health-care law.
The house unanimously passed a bill to ensure that US troops are paid even if other federal workers are put on furlough.
“The American people don’t want a government shutdown, and they don’t want ObamaCare,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.
The only two Republicans to cross party lines to vote against the measure were Upstate Representatives Richard Hanna and Chris Gibson. Two Democrats also crossed party lines, in voting for the measure.
Democrats blamed a small faction of Tea Party Republicans for forcing Boehner to play a high-stakes game of legislative ping pong.
The House previously passed a temporary budget bill that defunded ObamaCare altogether, but Senate Democrats cut out that provision before sending it back to the House.
“The government is going to shut down,” lamented Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee.
“They don’t believe in any kind of compromise,” Cummings added.
Meanwhile, Republicans pointed fingers at Obama, who spent Saturday afternoon playing a round of golf on the championship-level course at Fort Belvoir, Va.
Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas) in a floor speech noted that Obama wouldn’t talk to Republican lawmakers, but would talk with “Russia, China and Iran.”
Obama has promised to veto any Obamacare changes.
“This is no surprise,” Williams said. “This is the same man who spends more time with Hollywood stars than members of Congress. It’s not Congress that will shut our government down. It’s our president!”
Still, Congress has a history of making deals in the eleventh hour to avoid catastrophe.
“Mr. Reid and the president have both said they wouldn’t negotiate on other occasions and they wound up negotiating,” said Tea Party member Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.). “We’re giving them a great proposal.”
Congress could pass a short-term spending bill to fund the government for one more week if a deal isn’t reached by midnight on Monday night.