WASHINGTON — Ignoring the wishes of the White House and the Senate, the House of Representatives passed a stopgap funding bill Friday that will shut down the government unless Democrats agree to defund President Barack Obama’s marquee health care law.
While the House voted 230 to 189 to pass the measure that Democrats have called unacceptable, Republicans insisted their bill does nothing to shutter the federal government.
“It simply keeps the lights on in our government,” said Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, on Friday.
Rogers, whose committee is effectively short-circuited by the three-month stopgap bill, said almost nothing about the Affordable Care Act, but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) made clear that the main point of the measure is to block the health care law.