White House Meeting On Government Shutdown Ends Without A Deal

President Barack Obama brought top lawmakers to the White House on Wednesday as Republicans rejected Democratic demands to end a two-day partial government shutdown without changes to the nation’s three-year-old health care law.Obama “refuses to negotiate,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio., told reporters after private talks that lasted more than an hour. “All we’re asking for here is a discussion and fairness for the American people under Obamacare.”

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said, “We’re locked in tight on Obamacare” and neither the president nor Democrats in Congress will accept changes in that health care law as the price for spending legislation needed to reopen the government.

“My friend John Boehner cannot take yes for an answer,” Reid said.

Despite the meeting, White House press secretary Jay Carney said sharply that Obama “will not offer concessions to Republicans in exchange for not tanking the economy.”

With the nation’s ability to borrow money soon to lapse, Republicans and Democrats alike said the shutdown that has idled an estimated 800,000 federal workers could last for two weeks or more, obliging a divided government to grapple with both issues at the same time.

The Republican-controlled House approved legislation to reopen the nation’s parks and the National Institutes of Health, even though many Democrats criticized them as part of a piecemeal approach that fell far short of what was needed. The bills face dim prospects in the Senate, and the White House threatened to veto both in the unlikely event they make it to Obama’s desk.

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