A government shutdown has become increasingly likely as conservatives ramp up pressure on House Republicans to reject a Senate bill restoring funding for ObamaCare. 
 
 
 
 Conservative activists say Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) credibility is on the line, and warn he will not serve another term as House GOP leader if he agrees to fund the Affordable Care Act along with the rest of government. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Senate Democrats, however, say Boehner will be responsible for shutting down the government if he makes any changes to the stopgap bill that the Senate passed on Friday."I want everyone to listen and to hear: The United States Senate has acted," Reid said on the Senate floor. "This is the only legislation that can avert a government shutdown, and that time is ticking as we speak."Reid adjourned the Senate until 2 pm Monday, leaving the House to work out the government funding stalemate on its own. Reid’s staff said there are not any talks with Boehner on finding a compromise before the Oct. 1 deadline.Brent Bozell, the chairman of ForAmerica and a prominent conservative activist, said Boehner would face calls to step down if he accepts a stopgap spending measure that does not defund or delay ObamaCare.“He’s going to be threatened. If he chooses to side with Barack Obama and with the Democrats in order to fund ObamaCare, then he owns ObamaCare and he can’t get out of that.“He’ll be as responsible for ObamaCare as Harry Reid,” he said.Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, said conservative groups around the country on Friday began focusing a national grassroots lobbying campaign on House Republicans.She said Tea Party Patriots directed 10,000 calls a day to Senate offices while the upper chamber debated a resolution linking the stopgap with a measure defunding ObamaCare.Martin said there would be growing calls from conservatives around the country for Boehner to resign if he allows the Senate-passed stopgap to receive a vote on the House floor.“I think if he does that we’ll probably see people across this country in the grassroots calling for a new Speaker,” she said.The Senate stopgap bill does not include language defunding ObamaCare or prioritizing debt payments in the event that Congress fails to raise the debt limit. Both elements were in the original House bill.Threats from conservative activists are nothing new for Boehner. In March, Bozell blasted Boehner and other House GOP leaders for failing to deliver on the promises of the 2010 midterm election.Boehner’s spokesman on Friday said the House would not approve a government funding bill that fails to address the Affordable Care Act.“The House will take action that reflects the fundamental fact that Americans don’t want a government shutdown and they don’t want the train wreck that is ObamaCare,” said Brendan Buck.House Republicans will meet at around noon on Saturday in the Capitol to plot their legislative strategy.“We are reviewing our options and will discuss them with members tomorrow,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner.Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) announced Friday afternoon that he would offer an amendment to the stopgap bill delaying ObamaCare until 2015. The proposal has 61 supporters.The mounting pressure from Tea Party groups and the tough rhetoric from House Republicans has alarmed senators who say a government shutdown appears more likely.Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said the situation is more unpredictable now than in 2011, when Congress teetered on the brink of a government shutdown and then a possible national default.“Reading the tea leaves is more difficult. I think it is going to be difficult on the [funding bill] and it may be even more difficult on the debt ceiling,” Corker said. “I think it’s going to be tough for them.”Even if congressional leaders avoid a shutdown, they will face another showdown in mid-October over the debt limit. The administration says the nation’s borrowing authority must be increased by Oct. 17.President Obama on Friday said negotiating with Republicans on the government funding bill would only give them incentive to use the debt-ceiling and any future expiration of government funding as bargaining chips.“The bill that's designed to avert a government shutdown basically just funds the government for another couple months, so we could be doing this all over again,” he said. “I'm sure the American people are thrilled about that. And that's why we've got to break this cycle.”Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, said a shutdown is possible despite Senate passage of the stopgap.“Some of the Democrats think they can provoke a shutdown and they can blame the Republicans for it,” he said.House Republican leaders might focus now on trying to buy time, possibly by passing a weeklong stopgap.A senior Senate GOP aide discounted that possibility, however.“Passing a weeklong CR isn’t going to get you anywhere. Anything that can’t pass now won’t pass in a week or two weeks,” said the aide.A Senate Democratic aide said Tea Party Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) would not allow Reid to waive procedural rules to approve a one-week stopgap quickly enough to avert a shutdown.Lee declined to say whether he would grant consent in such a scenario.“I’d have to think that through under the totality of the circumstances if we had something like that,” he said.Cruz urged House Republicans to stand firm against any government funding bill that allows the implementation of the Affordable Care Act to move ahead. The law’s open-enrollment period begins Oct. 1.“I hope and believe that when the House takes this up again House Republicans will continue to stand together on the side of the American people,” he said.He said if the House returns the stopgap with new language defunding or delaying ObamaCare, “it will be an opportunity for every Senate Republican to come home, to stand for the principles we all share.”He spoke to reporters shortly after 25 Senate Republicans voted to let the Senate version of the bill reach a final vote. 
 
 
 
 ||||| House and Senate leadership aides in both parties are increasingly convinced the federal government will close for the first time in more than 17 years on Tuesday morning. 
 
 There is still time to avoid such a climactic stalemate, the aides acknowledged. But unless there is a dramatic change in momentum, the likelihood that a partisan showdown over government funding and the future of Obamacare could lead to a shutdown has increased dramatically. 
 
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 reset Obama to Congress: 'Pay our bills on time' Turn the Table: Threat of a government shutdown 
 
 With a special closed-door meeting meeting of House Republicans set for noon Saturday, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his top lieutenants have not yet formulated their next play in their quest to keep the government open. It’s not even clear that the House will vote on Saturday. 
 
 (PHOTOS: How well do you know the news: Shutdown edition) 
 
 There have been repeated contacts between GOP and Democratic leaders and senior aides in recent days but no negotiations of any sort – or sign those are about to start – to resolve the standoff. Both sides feel they have made their position known to the other side, and are unwilling to make any concessions at this moment. 
 
 Senior House GOP sources say Republicans are likely to send the Senate an amended government-funding bill, but not a proposed one-week stop gap measure. Without that one-week funding bill - needed while Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House try to reach a compromise agreement - the federal government will beginning shutting down “non-essential” operations on Tuesday morning. 
 
 House Republicans are considering adding several provisions to the two-month, $986 billion continuing resolution passed by the Senate on Friday, and then sending the bill back to the the upper chamber. These options include: a one-year delay of the individual mandate called for in the 2010 Affordable Care Act; an end to government’s contribution to health care for lawmakers and Hill staffers; a repeal of the medical devices tax that helps fund Obamacare; or the elimination of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a controversial Obamacare provision designed to hold down Medicare costs. 
 
 (WATCH - Debt ceiling showdown: By the numbers) 
 
 Reid, though, has already warned Boehner that he will block any House GOP funding bill with Obamacare-related provisions. Reid would move to table any House bill that contains those additional provisions favored by House Republicans. Reid could do that with a simple majority vote on Monday, setting up a government shutdown the following morning. 
 
 ”We are going to accept nothing that relates to Obamacare. There’s a time and place for everything and this is not that time or place,” Reid said at a press conference following Friday’s vote. 
 
 President Barack Obama warned Republicans to “think about who you’re hurting” by letting the government shut down and said a closure would “throw a wrench into the gears of our economy at a time when those gears have gained some traction.” 
 
 Boehner, however, is under heavy pressure from his tea party and conservative House GOP colleagues to move to stop Obamacare’s implementation, whatever the political risk, including a shutdown. 
 
 (VIDEO: Major players to watch in shutdown showdown on Capitol Hill) 
 
 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is privately meeting with hard-line House conservatives to try to get them to hold out against any spending bill that does not defund or delay Obamacare — set to begin on Oct. 1, the same date government funding runs out. A House GOP debt ceiling package loaded with conservative goodies, including a provision delaying Obamacare’s individual mandate for a year, couldn’t even get enough support to make it to the floor, demonstrating how little sway Boehner holds over his rank-and-file members at this point. 
 
 Friday saw a new headache for the Ohio Republican - GOP lawmakers who are pushing back against others in the party who want to end the government contribution to the health insurance of lawmakers and staff. 
 
 Some of Boehner’s (R-Ohio) top allies marched into his Capitol office Friday afternoon to beg the speaker not to cut off health-insurance subsidies, which are deeply unpopular with the party base. Under heavy pressure from Capitol Hill — including Boehner — the Obama administration ruled in late July that lawmakers could continue receiving the employer contribution even as they enroll in new health insurance exchanges. 
 
 (PHOTOS: John Boehner’s life and career) 
 
 On Friday, Boehner told the group — GOP Reps. Tom Cole (Okla.), Duncan Hunter, Jr. (Calif.), Mike Turner (Ohio), Kay Granger (Texas) and Anders Crenshaw (Fla.) — to canvass the House Republican Conference to find out what might get support, according to sources familiar with the talks. 
 
 For the moment, it appears that those lawmakers may win that fight, despite repeated calls from Republicans like Rep. Mike McCaul (Texas) and Sen.David Vitter (La.) to get rid of the subsidy, similar to that other Americans get from their employers. 
 
 “For the last 25 years, members of Congress have been treated like every other federal employee,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), a staunch opponent of cutting those subsidies who spoke up against the idea in a closed party meeting. “This idea of trying to vilify us now …, that is not the right thing to do.” 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama to Congress: ‘Pay our bills on time’) 
 
 Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), once a congressional staffer himself, said he was “a little concerned” with cutting staff health insurance subsidies. 
 
 Yet it’s obvious – and a huge understatement – to say the House GOP leadership is in a difficult predicament right now. Reid and Obama have refused to yield any ground on either the CR or the even more high stakes debt ceiling fight. The Treasury Department has warned the federal government will hit its $16.7 trillion borrowing limit on Oct. 17. 
 
 Obama is not interested in giving away pieces of his health care law just to fund government’s operations. And Boehner’s conservatives – who are taking their lead from Cruz – are not interested in giving up on their fight to defund Obamacare. There’s next to no trust in leadership’s strategies, and even less in Boehner himself. 
 
 (VIDEO: Mitt Romney thinks there's a better way to stop Obamacare) 
 
 The last few weeks have been a game of whack-a-mole for Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.): they’ve cycled through a number of strategies to both fund the government, and lift the debt limit. But each time they do, the party’s conservative wing shoots it down and demands a new plan. 
 
 GOP leadership will try once again to wrangle support for something – anything – on Saturday, when they meet in a closed session in the Capitol basement. House leadership said they might not even vote on a CR Saturday; that vote could slip until Sunday, Republicans lawmakers and aides said. ||||| “The planning itself is disruptive,” an exhausted Hale told reporters. “People are worrying right now about whether their paychecks are going to be delayed, rather than focusing fully on their mission.” 
 
 Shutdown planning has eaten up “probably thousands of hours in employee time better spent on supporting national security,” Hale said. 
 
 The tempo was similar at just about every federal agency this week, with managers racing from planning meetings to town hall gatherings with their employees. 
 
 Hundreds of thousands of employees who got word Friday that their jobs would not be essential prepared to turn in their government-issued BlackBerrys and 
 
 iPhones on Tuesday morning, while colleagues who must still report to the office wondered how their agencies would carry out their missions. 
 
 In the Defense Department, about 400,000 civilians will have to stay home if Congress does not pass a bill to keep the government open, Hale said. 
 
 Preparing for even a partial closure is a unique challenge for the Defense Department, which has a global reach that includes about 200 schools, 250 commissaries, and 700 hospitals and clinics. The department’s mission is singular within the federal government. The Pentagon must continue to support its combat operations in Afghanistan and deployments in many corners of the world. 
 
 In his Office of Public Affairs on Friday, Army Col. Steve Warren was coming to grips with the reality facing his staff. 
 
 “I’ve got no essentials in here, and I’m concerned,” Warren said, as CNN reported on his flat-screen television about the latest developments on Capitol Hill. 
 
 Half the press staff is active- 
 
 duty military and the other half civilians, a common mix throughout the agency. The uniformed officers must come to work in a shutdown. 
 
 Warren was worrying about manning hundreds of Pentagon Web sites and Twitter and Facebook, which get information to the public. “Guess who runs most of them?” he said. “Civilians who are not essential.” 
 
 Some Defense Web sites are run by contractors who will probably be working, since their funding has been approved. But if the federal workers supervising them are furloughed, the contractors may not be able to work. ||||| Among the affects of a federal shutdown: delays in processing passport and visa applications, issuing gun permits, continuing U.S. bankruptcy court cases and approving mortgage applications. 
 
 In this Nov. 15, 1995, file photo, a U.S. Park Service police officer stands in front of closed signs at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, during a partial shutdown of the federal government. (Photo: AP file photo) Story Highlights If budget deal is not worked out, federal government will shut down after midnight Monday 
 
 Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid payments would continue during a shutdown 
 
 About 41 percent of nondefense federal employees would be furloughed 
 
 WASHINGTON – If Democrats and Republicans don't reach a spending deal by midnight Monday, a partial government shutdown will take effect. 
 
 The 2013 fiscal year ends at midnight Monday. Many federal programs and activities will stop beginning Tuesday and won't restart until a new deal is in place. 
 
 Here's a guide to understanding how Congress got to this stage and how a shutdown would affect you. 
 
 Question: Will the entire government come to a standstill if a deal isn't reached? 
 
 Answer: No. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other "entitlement" programs that are funded automatically will escape the worst effects. But government agencies that rely on yearly congressional appropriations will be hit a lot harder. That includes giant agencies such as the Pentagon and smaller ones such as the National Park Service. 
 
 WHERE DO YOU FIT?: Breaking down the Affordable Care Act 
 
 Federal agencies have prepared plans to continue programs they deem critical to maintaining public safety and protecting property despite the shutdown. Employees who perform those critical functions will continue to work and get paid. 
 
 For instance, air traffic controllers and firefighters contracted by the National Forest Service would continue to work, but park rangers and researchers who conduct clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health would be furloughed. 
 
 USA TODAY estimates that about 41 percent of nondefense federal employees will be furloughed, but the remaining 59 percent will continue working. 
 
 Q: Will I still get my mail? 
 
 A: Yes. The U.S. Postal Service isn't funded by taxpayers. Independently financed agencies like the Postal Service won't be affected. 
 
 Q: How did Congress get in this situation? 
 
 A: In a word, partisanship. Differences between Democrats and Republicans are deepening over virtually every issue, and federal spending is the biggest one of all. 
 
 A temporary spending measure -- a continuing resolution, or CR -- approved by the GOP-controlled House on Sept. 20 would have kept the government running until mid-December but would have cut funding to implement the Affordable Care Act. 
 
 The Democratic-majority Senate rejected that plan, designed to gut President Barack Obama's signature health care law. On Friday the Senate approved its own CR that included money for the law known as "Obamacare." 
 
 House leaders are meeting over the weekend to consider their next move. If the House modifies the Senate CR as Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has promised, then the Senate has to approve the amended version before it reaches the White House. 
 
 It's unclear if and when those legislative steps will be fulfilled. Short answer: Things remain in limbo. 
 
 Q: What will be the impact of a shutdown? 
 
 A: All national parks and federal wildlife refuges would be closed for the duration of the shutdown, the Interior Department said Friday. About 9 million visitors were turned away from parks, museums and monuments run by the National Park Service in the mid-1990s, the last time the government shut down temporarily. 
 
 About 40 percent of the nation's 2 million federal workers would be furloughed. Though Congress has approved restoring lost pay retroactively in the past, there's no guarantee lawmakers will do that this time. 
 
 About 1.4 million active-duty military personnel must remain on the job but won't get paid until a new deal is signed into law. Active National Guard units also must continue to work. Most civilian employees of the Defense Department face furloughs. 
 
 Some other possibilities: Delays in processing tens of thousands of passport and visa applications, issuing gun permits, continuing U.S. bankruptcy court cases and approving mortgage applications. 
 
 Many congressional and White House staffers also may have to stay home. But members of Congress and the president are exempt from furloughs 
 
 Q: Has the government been shut down in the past? 
 
 A: Yes. The last one lasted 21 days from Dec. 15, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. It came soon after a five-day shutdown that lasted from Nov. 13-19, 1995. A disagreement over tax cuts between then-President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., precipitated those shutdowns. 
 
 Since 1976, there have been 17 shutdowns, though before the 1980s the government continued operating at reduced levels without furloughing workers. 
 
 Q: Isn't there going to be another showdown over raising the debt limit? 
 
 A: That's highly likely. Republicans, particularly ultraconservative tea party members, argue the debt ceiling shouldn't be raised unless Congress makes sizable spending cuts. 
 
 Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has said the government will run out of money around Oct. 17. In addition to using tax revenues, the Obama administration has to borrow more money to pay bills the nation has already racked up. But Congress has to raise the debt limit to allow increased borrowing -- and that permission won't come without another fight. 
 
 If the debt ceiling isn't raised, the U.S. economy will suffer even more that under a shutdown, Obama said Friday. For instance, interest rates on credit cards, student loans and mortgages loans could rise. And the nation's creditworthiness -- and global influence -- would take a beating, experts say, though critics dismiss such talk as hyperbole. 
 
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– John Boehner planned a strategy session later today with House Republican leaders to plot their next move, but the prospects of avoiding a government shutdown before Monday's midnight deadline are getting bleaker by the hour, reports Politico. For one thing, no negotiations between Republicans and Democrats are even on the horizon, because both sides feel they've already staked out their positions. The Hill also thinks a shutdown is "increasingly likely," and USA Today has rolled out a primer on what it would mean to ordinary citizens: Yes, you'll get your mail, and neither Medicare, Social Security, nor Medicaid will be affected. But scores of other federal programs and activities will come to a halt: Forget visiting a national park or museum, and expect delays in everything from passport applications to gun permits to mortgage approvals. USA Today estimates that 40% of non-defense federal workers will be furloughed during the shutdown, and the Washington Post has details on how the Pentagon is scrambling to prepare. In short, it's a logistical mess, with about 400,000 civilian employees told they'd have to stay home unless a deal is reached. “The planning itself is disruptive,” says the Defense Department's comptroller. “People are worrying right now about whether their paychecks are going to be delayed, rather than focusing fully on their mission.”