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House cancels vote on plan to reopen government
Washington Post: The influential conservative group Heritage Action also opposed the House proposal soon after it was announced, and conservatives close to the House leadership expressed alarm that they had shut down the government and would get nothing for it except a punitive measure restricting their own staff’s healthcare, according to senior House Republican aides.
“I’ve got one vote and I’m a no,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said as he left a meeting with House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) leadership team.
The stunning turnaround could represent yet another rebuke to Boehner, whose previous efforts at compromise have been thwarted by his party’s right flank. And with the U.S. Treasury set to exhaust its ability to borrow money on Thursday, Fitch Ratings, a credit rating agency, announced Tuesday that it was accelerating its timetable for a potential U.S. credit rating downgrade, among the first concrete effects of the standoff. If Fitch follows through, it would become the second credit rating firm to downgrade U.S. government debt, potentially triggering ripple effects across a range of financial markets.