House Republicans turned up the political heat by passing a spending plan that defunds President Barack Obama's health care law, a ploy that pushes government toward shutdown and possible default.
Congress now has just nine days to breach a bitter ideological divide and approve a short-term federal budget before several government agencies and programs shutter at the beginning of fiscal year 2014 on October 1.
Lawmakers voted yesterday along party lines 230-189 to fund government operations at current levels through December 15, setting up a showdown with the Democratic-led Senate, which will consider -- and almost certainly reject -- the measure next week.
The Republican bill includes a provision that strips funding for the health care law, which its critics have nicknamed "Obamacare" and which the GOP has fought to repeal since its passage more than three years ago.
Speaker John Boehner, whom Democrats accuse of caving in to extremists in his caucus, insisted the vote reflected Americans' frustration with ill effects of the health law.
"Our message to the United States Senate is real simple: the American people don't want the government shut down, and they don't want Obamacare," Boehner said, to loud cheers from his Republican members.
But with both sides insisting they will not blink in the face-off, the nation careened into fiscal whitewater.
"We really have no idea -- no idea -- how this is going to play out yet," a Republican congressional aide told AFP.
Obama looked beyond the shutdown threat to a more portentous battle next month -- the need to raise the US borrowing limit, which Republicans have also vowed to try and block unless the health care law can be delayed by a year.
The president, visiting a car plant in Missouri, accused Republicans of risking a "tailspin" for the still recovering US economy by putting partisan zeal ahead of the good of the nation.
"If we don't raise the debt ceiling -- we are deadbeats," Obama warned in a fiery speech, saying it was "the height of irresponsibility" for House Republicans to threaten a government default unless they get their way.
Later, he telephoned Boehner to urge the House leader to fulfill Congress's role in paying the nation's bills, but Obama also said he "wouldn't negotiate with him on the debt limit," according to a Boehner aide.
"The speaker was disappointed but told the president that the two chambers of Congress will chart the path ahead," the aide added. "It was a brief call.
