avert a government shutdown[->0] after midnight action in the House to delay President Obama[->1]'s healthcare law[->2], with both parties trading accusations Sunday about who would be to blame for an impasse.
Neither the House nor Senate[->3] planned to meet Sunday, with fewer than 36 hours left to approve a new stopgap spending measure. Instead, members of Congress[->4] fanned out to the TV networks' Sunday news shows to react to mostly party-line votes the House took overnight to again send the spending bill back to the Senate with provisions to undermine the Affordable Care Act. Republicans[->5] have insisted that such provisions be part of any deal to keep federal agencies open once the new budget year begins Tuesday.
Sen. Ted Cruz[->6] (R-Texas), who has assumed a lead role among conservatives in pursuing the “defund or delay” strategy, repeatedly argued Sunday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid[->7] (D-Nev.) now stands in the way of a resolution.
Cruz accused Reid of using "brute political force" to resist any changes in the healthcare law, which Cruz described as the "biggest job-killer in this country."
"So far Majority Leader Harry Reid has essentially told the House of Representatives[->8] and the American people, 'Go jump in a lake,' " Cruz said on NBC's "Meet The Press."
"If we have a shutdown, it will only be because when the Senate comes back, Harry Reid says, 'I refuse even to talk.' "
Reid on Saturday called the Republicans' latest offer — a one-year delay of the healthcare law and a repeal of a tax that helps pay for it — “pointless." He vowed the Democratic-led Senate would hold firm against new amendments. The White House[->9] has also threatened to veto any changes in the law. A key part of the new healthcare law — online marketplaces that will allow consumers who lack insurance to buy coverage — begins to roll out Tuesday.

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