Obama: U.S. government shutdown threatening economy

Boehner had sought to avoid the shutdown and engineer passage of a “clean” temporary spending bill for averting a government shutdown.

This time Tea Party activists mobilized by freshman Senator Ted Cruz of Texas mounted a campaign to seize the must-do measure in an effort to derail Obamacare. GOP leaders voiced reservations and many Republican lawmakers predicted it wouldn’t work. Some even labelled it “stupid.”

But the success of Cruz and other Tea Party-endorsed conservatives who upset establishment GOP candidates in 2010 and 2012 primaries was a lesson learned for many Republican lawmakers going into next year’s election.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press

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