Hopes of shutdown deal rise after Obama meets Senate Republicans

Polls show collapse in support for Republicans that could embolden more moderate GOP senators to seek compromise
Ted Cruz shutdown
Ted Cruz returns to Capitol Hill after a meeting between President Obama and Senate Republicans at the White House. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Hope was rising in Washington on Friday afternoon that Republicans were on the cusp of a deal that would end the crippling two-week government shutdown after opinion polls showed a collapse in public support for their stand against President Obama.

House speaker John Boehner has already offered a temporary climbdown over a separate threat to the debt limit that could have forced the US government to default on its national debt and other financial obligations.

But this six-week debt limit extension was deemed insufficient by the White House, which has refused to negotiate with Republicans until they also agreed to end the partial government shutdown, which has seen up to 800,000 federal employees suspended without pay and closed public services such as national parks and monuments.

Now there are signs that plunging opinion polls may have shocked Republicans into further concessions.

A joint poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal published on Thursday night showed the US public overwhelmingly blames the Republican party for the crisis by a margin of more than 22 percentage points.

Only 24% of those polled continue to have a favourable opinion of the Republican party, the lowest in the history of the NBC/WSJ poll and enough to give control of the House of Representatives back to Democrats in next year's midterm elections.

Obama met Senate Republicans at the White House for 90 minutes over Friday lunchtime amid signs that the polling was emboldening more moderate GOP senators to seek a compromise that could allow their party to climb back from the brink.

Emerging from what she described as a good but inconclusive meeting, senator Susan Collins said: "The president listened carefully and said some of the [deal] elements could work but he certainly did not endorse it."

With the support of Senate leadership, Collins is understood to have suggested a deal which could re-open the government and extend the debt limit for six months in exchange for a token concession from Obama over his controversial healthcare reforms and an agreement to hold wider talks on spending reductions.

This deal would scrap a tax on medical device manufacturers that would partially funded the so-called Obamacare initiative to extend insurance to poorer Americans and may still prove a step too far for the White House.

Conservative Republicans continue to insist on a total repeal of Obamacare in exchange for ending the shutdown.

A meeting of grassroots activists in Washington on Friday cheered conservative figurehead Ted Cruz before he joined other senators at the White House meeting.

“If I am never seen again, please send a search-and-rescue team,” joked Cruz. “I very much hope I don't wake up tomorrow morning amid the Syrian rebels.”

House Republican leaders were said to be scrambling on Friday to come up with their own deal before the Senate, but continued to insist in public that the ball was in Obama's court.

The developments came as the largest union representing federal workers expressed frustration that government employees were being forced to work without pay. “At one point we had legal slavery in this country,” said Jeffrey David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) in an interview with the Guardian. “This is indentured servitude.”

Cox said nearly half of his 670,000 members had been deemed “essential workers” and were compelled to keep working without pay while the shutdown continues. Workers who do not turn up for their jobs face disciplinary action and could be fired.

The AFGE represents a broad spectrum of government employees including nurses, doctors, aircraft mechanics, astronauts, scientists, safety inspectors, mine inspectors, food inspectors, fire fighters, janitors, lawyers and paralegals.

“Our people want to go to work. They want to be on their jobs, protecting the food supply, guarding our borders,” he said. “Half of them are at home the other half are going to work but not being paid,” he said.

The government has promised to pay essential workers for their time but “that can’t even happen until the shutdown ends”, said Cox. The House of Representatives this week passed a bill that would also give furloughed employees back pay for the time they have been out of work, a measure for which President Obama has expressed support.

Friday would have been payday for many of those workers. Cox said many of his members were already beginning to struggle to make ends meet. “I spoke to an someone today who had received $100 in compensation last week. She has food to buy, rent to pay,” he said. “No employer requires its employees to work and not get paid. Nobody could want us to run a government this way. Nobody.”