No Talks Underway To Resolve Shutdown
If you're wondering how long the shutdown will last, well, don't hold your breath.
As of this writing, there are no indications that talks are underway — or even in the offing.
Indeed, the Democratic-controlled Senate rejected House legislation Tuesday morning calling for a House-Senate conference to try and settle the disagreement behind the first federal government shutdown in 17 years.
Senate Democrats spurned the House request because they reject Republican efforts to couple continued funding of the government to GOP attempts to hamstring the Affordable Care Act. Democrats insist they're not opposed to revising Obamacare; they're just not going to do it in the face of government-shutdown or debt-default threats.
"No matter how many times they try to extort the American people and the Democrats here in the Senate, we're not going to relitigate the health care issue," Sen. Harry Reid said on the Senate floor, explaining why his Democrats voted down the House request for a conference. "We're not going to do that. If they have problems with (Obamacare) we'll be happy to sit down and talk with them about a reasonable approach to do that. But we're not going to with a gun to the heads of the American people."