As the government shutdown reaches its second week and Congress’ inability to compromise continues to keep roughly 800,000 federal workers furloughed, U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D–Wis., is working with U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, R–Pa., to draft a bipartisan bill that would temporarily reopen the government.
The bill would eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s controversial tax on medical devices in exchange for the passing of a budget. Kind said in a statement he believes bipartisan momentum is growing and that he and Dent came together to “agree on a course of action.”
Every year on Sept. 30 Congress has the constitutional responsibility to pass a federal budget. Failure to agree on a budget by Oct. 1 results in the shutdown of many non-essential aspects of the government.
While negotiating the budget bill, Republicans pushed for the repeal of certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act before they would pass a budget bill, but Democrats would not accept any movement on the ACA, leading to a failure to compromise and the ongoing shutdown.
Kind and Dent agree on an aspect of the bill that should be removed and are gaining bipartisan support. Peter Knudsen, Kind’s press secretary, said in an email Kind proposed the bill because members of the House, “need to walk before [they] run by having bipartisan conversations to build trust.”
Other Wisconsin representatives, including Sean Duffy, R-Wis., and Reid Ribble, R-Wis., also gave indications they are willing to compromise.
Duffy said in a statement he “remains hopeful” that an agreement can be reached, but said he “at the very least” would like to delay Obamacare.
Ribble, who called the shutdown “harmful and embarrassing” in a statement, is part of the bipartisan group that met with Kind and Dent last week.
Kind said in a statement the bipartisan group plans to move forward with discussions in the coming days.
