text: Getty Images House Speaker John Boehner 
   
   Congress is working through the weekend to resolve a standoff that could prompt a government shutdown next week. Here’s a look at what’s happening, and why, ahead of the Monday night deadline to approve new funding for federal agencies. 
   
   Q. What are the next steps in Congress to avoid a government shutdown? 
   
   A. The House voted early Sunday morning to approve a plan to fund federal agencies through Dec. 15, which would also include conditions related to the new federal health law. Those conditions include delay the start of the health law for one year and repeal the law’s tax on medical devices. 
   
   Q. Senate Democrats say they will reject any changes to the health law, and President Barack Obama would veto such a bill. Why did House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) move to delay the law? 
   
   A. Mr. Boehner has a powerful incentive to continue to press his party’s fight against the health law: Conservatives in the House Republican conference are clamoring for a confrontation over it, and they have the votes to make trouble for Mr. Boehner on this and many other fiscal matters. Mr. Boehner does not want to stand down from a fight too soon. 
   
   If the House eventually accepts a spending bill with no major changes to the health law, Republicans will be unlikely to do so until the last minute. It may even be that a short government shutdown will have to take place to satisfy the conservatives’ desire to show they fought as much as they could. 
   
   Moreover, Republicans believe there is some chance that the Senate will agree to repeal the medical device tax, giving the House GOP a victory. Test votes earlier this year in the Senate showed broad, bipartisan support for the repeal. However, the leading Democratic proponent of the repeal –Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota — has said she does not favor tacking it onto the spending bill. Senate leadership aides say they are confident they have the votes to beat the amendment. 
   
   Republicans argue that their new proposal to delay the health care law for a year represents a compromise between their earlier efforts to repeal it entirely and Democrats’ desire to make no changes in it for now. 
   
   Q. What options does the Senate have after the House acts? 
   
   A. Senate is not scheduled to reconvene until Monday afternoon—close to the midnight deadline for passing legislation to avoid a government shutdown. Democratic leaders could call senators into session on Sunday or earlier on Monday, but aides say they have no plans to do so. 
   
   Democrats could receive the bill and then table the amendments to delay the health law and to repeal the medical device tax, which could be achieved with a 51-vote majority. 
   
   Aides do not expect there to be an opportunity for delaying tactics such as a filibuster. But if an opening arises, one lawmaker who has already shown an inclination to use delaying tactics is Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), who has been trying to strip all money for the health care law from the spending bill. 
   
   Q. What scenarios are there for how this gets resolved? 
   
   A. The window is closing on the opportunities for avoiding a government shutdown. The House and Senate could agree to a compromise between now and Monday night, but it is not clear how that would materialize or how it could be passed quickly—especially through the rule-laden Senate. 
   
   One possibility: Once it becomes clear that the impasse will not be broken by the deadline, the House and Senate could pass a very short-term funding bill—for a week or so—to buy a little more time to reach an agreement. Or, the partial government shutdown could hit, which would then ratchet up pressure on both parties to reach a compromise in the subsequent days. 
   
   More 
   
   Politics Counts: Shutdown Impact? Depends on Where You Live 
   
   What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Shutdown 
   
   Updates in the Budget Battle stream 
   
   Video: Damian Paletta on how the clock is ticking on on a government shutdown. 
   
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   ||||| Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been the most ardent proponent of President Barack Obama taking a hard line with House Republicans in the latest fiscal crisis engulfing Washington. 
   
   And so far, Reid is getting his way. 
   
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   reset Heckler at House GOP rally Reid: Won't bow to 'anarchists' 
   
   When the president considered sitting down with the four congressional leaders in the White House ahead of the deadline to avert a government shutdown, Reid privately urged Obama to call off the meeting, according to several people familiar with the situation. Reid believed that it would amount to nothing more than a photo-op that would give the false impression that a serious negotiation was occurring, even warning he wouldn’t attend such a session. Obama scrapped it. 
   
   (Government shutdown full coverage) 
   
   As Washington barrels forward to the first government shutdown in 17 years on Tuesday, the wily Reid has taken the lead role in pushing a hardball Democratic legislative strategy that can be summed up like this: Make the Republicans cave. 
   
   “He’s been the rock … and he’s had our whole caucus behind him,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a close Reid ally who spoke with the majority leader nine times on Saturday afternoon. “Because if we negotiate on a short-term [government funding bill], what are [Republicans] going to do on a long-term bill? What are they going to do on the debt ceiling?” 
   
   So far in this fight, the party’s leadership, senior White House officials and the president have been on the same page. They will not let Republicans gut or delay Obamacare — or concede an inch to the GOP despite the ramifications of a shutdown. For now, even Republicans privately concede House Republicans could suffer much of the political backlash for a looming shutdown. 
   
   (Also on POLITICO: Republicans toss insults at Reid) 
   
   But Reid’s no-compromise stance is not without its own risks. With Washington held in such low regard, politicians of all stripes are certain to incur fury from constituents once government services are suspended, parks are closed and hundreds of thousands of federal workers are furloughed. And Reid now is protecting a fragile Democratic Senate majority, with Republicans just six seats away from returning to power — so any misstep by the Nevada Democrat could hurt vulnerable senators in red states. 
   
   A shutdown appears a near certainty at this point. After the Senate stripped out language to defund Obamacare in a bill to keep the government running until mid-November, the House in a rare Saturday session added in a yearlong delay of major portions of the health care law and a repeal of the law’s 2.3 percent tax on medical-device makers. On Monday afternoon, Reid will reconvene the Senate and quickly move to kill the House’s anti-Obamacare provisions on the votes of just Democratic senators. 
   
   At that point, the ball will be back in Speaker John Boehner’s court: Pass a $986-billion continuing resolution that would continue to fund Obamacare, or send back another plan taking aim at the health law that Republicans collectively hate. If they choose the latter, Democrats plan to vote it down in the Senate. And if the House refuses to pass a clean stopgap measure, a partial government shutdown would occur for the first time since the Clinton era. 
   
   (PHOTOS: 17 times the government has shut down) 
   
   Reid said in an interview Friday there was little point for Obama to engage directly in the fiscal fights. “Not on the debt ceiling and not on the CR,” he told POLITICO. “Maybe on something else — but not these two. We have to fund the government and pay our bills.” 
   
   Reid’s strategy boils down to a few factors: If Democrats give even a few small concessions on a short-term stopgap funding measure, Republicans will demand even bigger concessions to avoid a debt default in mid-October. Since Republicans have been engulfed in an intraparty war over how far to take a shutdown threat, Reid and his top lieutenants are convinced that the political backlash from a shutdown would be devastating to the GOP, potentially costing them their majority in the House. 
   
   (WATCH: Obamacare timeline) 
   
   Republicans on Sunday furiously sought to change that narrative and put the blame squarely on Reid. About 20 House members rallied in front of the Senate steps on Sunday afternoon, accusing Reid of angling for a government shutdown to hurt Republicans politically. They called on the Senate to come back into session Sunday and negotiate with House Republicans. 
   
   (WATCH: Romney: There's a better way to stop Obamacare) 
   
   “The fact that the senators aren’t here and Harry Reid is off somewhere is all the evidence that you need to know that they want to shut down the government,” said Rep. Tim Griffin of Arkansas. “I personally believe that Sen. Reid and the president — for political purposes — want to shut down the government.” 
   
   Whether the party can stick together when the political heat intensifies remains to be seen given that Democrats haven’t always been unified in fiscal fights during Obama’s time in office. 
   
   Reid and top Democrats were infuriated by the White House’s handling of the fiscal cliff fight that led to a New Year’s Eve 2012 deal between Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. In late 2010, when the White House cut a deal with Senate Republicans to extend Bush-era tax cuts for two years, Democrats were also furious. And in 2011, Democrats feared Obama would cut a grand-bargain deal with Boehner that would slash too deeply into entitlement programs they have vowed to protect. 
   
   Now, the White House and Reid both plan to furiously make the argument that the burden will be squarely on Boehner to pass a temporary stopgap measure to keep the government funded — or risk the wrath from voters tired of political brinksmanship. 
   
   (Obamacare full coverage) 
   
   And Democrats say they will make sure neither they — nor the White House — will bend. Eventually, they believe, Boehner will be forced to acquiesce to Democratic demands to keep the government funded without any anti-Obamacare provisions. 
   
   “I think Harry Reid and the Democratic Senate Caucus have been the group that has been the strongest,” Schumer told POLITICO Sunday. 
   
   John Bresnahan contributed to this report. ||||| The Washington region, home to the largest concentration of federal workers and contractors in the nation, could lose an estimated $200 million a day and could see more than 700,000 jobs take a financial hit if the federal government shuts down Monday night, according to a local economist’s projections. 
   
   And that’s not counting the blow to tourism, one of the region’s economic mainstays, if the Smithsonian museums, the National Zoo, Civil War battlefields and other federally funded attractions are shuttered, said Stephen Fuller, director of George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis. 
   
   “This is serious,” Fuller said. “The national economy may not notice a shutdown much unless it lasts three or four weeks. But for the Washington area, this is a tsunami.” 
   
   In addition to the economic impact, area residents could also see cuts in federal services: no new applications for benefits such as Medicare, Social Security and child-care subsidies, no new housing or small-business loans, no new clinical trials for research funded by the National Institutes of Health and a murky prognosis for the safety net for those most in need. 
   
   Child-care centers in federal agencies would close, parents said, and child-care workers, who are not employed by the federal government, likewise would be sent home. 
   
   1 of 50 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Behind the scenes of the shutdown debate View Photos Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are scrambling before the Oct. 1 deadline. If a spending plan isn’t passed, many federal agencies will close their doors. Caption Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are scrambling before the Oct. 1 deadline. If a spending plan isn’t passed, many federal agencies will close their doors. Sept. 29, 2013 Cathryn Carroll of the District yells at Republican House members outside the Capitol as they called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to summon the Senate back to vote on their budget bill. The United States is bracing for a partial government shutdown after the White House and congressional Democrats declared that they would reject a bill approved by the Republican-led House to delay implementing President Obama's signature health-care law. Cliff Owen/AP Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
   
   Mail will continue to be delivered, as the U.S. Postal Service is an independent agency. Amtrak officials have said trains will continue to run. 
   
   And while the District is the only jurisdiction that could have basic services — such as trash pickup and libraries — halted, Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) is attempting to avoid that by declaring every city employee essential, a distinction that could keep them working through a federal shutdown. 
   
   Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) has been pushing a bill in Congress to exempt the city from a potential shutdown, as it did in 1995, when a federal shutdown had what Norton called a “disastrous” impact on the District. 
   
   “It was horrific,” Norton said. “In a shutdown, the garbage does not get picked up, no matter what, for a week. Then you can declare a health emergency.” 
   
   ‘We’re really bleeding’ 
   
   The possible shutdown comes at a time when the region’s economy is weak, said Fuller, the economist. The across-the-board sequestration cuts earlier this year cost the region 26,500 net jobs in August, Fuller said. With furloughs and agencies not filling positions, the $42 billion annual federal payroll is down $2 billion from last year, and federal contracting is down $5 billion. 
   
   “We’re really bleeding,” Fuller said. “A shutdown will have real costs.” 
   
   Fuller, who made his calculations over the weekend thinking that a shutdown would be inevitable, projected that 60 percent of the area’s 377,000 federal workers would be deemed “nonessential” and would stay home. 
   
   View Graphic Countdown to the (possible) shutdown 
   
   Likewise, he projected that the shutdown would affect about 20 percent of the government’s contractors, who receive about $75 billion a year from the federal government. And each person furloughed means less money spent at local businesses or vendors, he said. 
   
   Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) said a shutdown would have a disproportionate effect on the Washington region, where the federal government’s presence accounts for one-third of the economy. 
   
   In 1995 and 1996 — when a political impasse between President Bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled House led by Speaker Newt Gingrich resulted in the shutdown of the federal government for three weeks — several appropriations bills had already passed. This time, not a single appropriations bill has made it through Congress, so a shutdown could affect every federal agency in some way. 
   
   Air traffic controllers are considered essential, so planes will fly. But without “nonessential” support staff, those planes could be delayed. Federal benefits may continue to be processed, but with fewer workers to process them, no new applications would be accepted and “serious backlogs” would be expected. 
   
   Lawmakers passed legislation to continue paying active military members, but veterans’ benefits could run out if a shutdown lasts more than a few weeks, administration officials have said. 
   
   Widespread ripple effects 
   
   “The ripple effects of a shutdown can be devastating,” Connolly said. “A federal pullback may mean the difference for state and local governments on whether they can continue Meals on Wheels or hire an additional police officer or do more emergency preparedness training. All of this stuff is under the radar, but it’s very critical to the health of our communities.” 
   
   Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) is concerned about how a shutdown could affect the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the CIA, the U.S. Marshals Service and other agencies, many of whose employees live in the area. “Congressman Wolf has been saying for weeks that shutting down the government is not a good idea,” said Daniel Scandling, a spokesman for Wolf. 
   
   The Congressional Research Service, in a recent report, said the 1996 federal government shutdowns shuttered national parks and monuments, stopped the processing of passport applications and the visa applications of foreigners, halted new patient enrollments in clinical trials at the NIH, and delayed work on bankruptcy and delinquent child-support cases. 
   
   In 2011, the federal judiciary estimated that it could operate courts for two weeks after a shutdown but that “serious disruptions” would follow. 
   
   The D.C. region could be hit hard by lost income tax revenue from tens of thousands of idled federal workers: Maryland officials estimate the state would lose $5 million a day. Prince George’s County officials say they could lose $270,000 in income tax revenue daily during a shutdown. 
   
   To stave off such effects, local governments have been setting aside pots of money in anticipation of a shutdown. Montgomery County accounted for a possible $60 million loss in revenue in its current budget. Arlington County set aside $3 million, and Fairfax County has $8 million. Maryland and Virginia officials say they are looking at the possibility of tapping reserve funds.
target: – Washington is braced for the first government shutdown in 17 years, which will happen at midnight tonight unless lawmakers manage to break the deadlock over funding and hammer out a deal. Here's what to expect from a day of drama in DC: The House has passed legislation to delay ObamaCare for a year and repeal a tax on medical devices, so the measure will return to the Senate this afternoon, just hours before the shutdown is due to kick in. Harry Reid is expected to table the anti-ObamaCare amendments with a simple Democratic majority and quickly send it back to the House—but if any opportunity arises for Senate Republicans to use delaying tactics, expect Ted Cruz to lead the way, the Wall Street Journal predicts. There's a chance of a straight up-or-down vote in the House, but if it becomes clear that it will be impossible to break the deadlock by midnight—which appears to be the likeliest scenario—the partial shutdown could still be averted if lawmakers pass a short-term funding bill to buy another week or so of debating time. So who will blink first? Neither Reid nor John Boehner appears likely to give way. Reid is determined to play hardball and not give an inch on ObamaCare, Politico reports. Reid and his allies believe that giving any concessions now will only lead to bigger concessions to avoid a debt default next month—and they think the backlash from a government shutdown will hit the GOP hardest. Boehner, meanwhile, will face the wrath of his party's conservatives if he gives way too soon—but polls show the public will blame his House Republicans if there is a shutdown. If there is a shutdown, it won't be an abrupt halt to government, but more "like a spending freeze that will gradually spread through the government like ice forming in water," Quartz explains. Federal employees, 800,000 of whom will be sent home without pay, will be the first affected, and the shutdown will also affect scientific research, trade negotiations, and the federal programs that guarantee home loans and provide capital to business. Air traffic controllers will still be at work, however, and agencies that deal with national security and law enforcement are exempt from the shutdown. A shutdown of a few days might not do too much damage, but experts warn that the national economy will take a serious hit if it is prolonged. In Washington, DC, however, even a brief shutdown will cost the district an estimated $200 million a day—and affect basic services like trash collection. "This is serious," the director of George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis tells the Washington Post. "The national economy may not notice a shutdown much unless it lasts three or four weeks. But for the Washington area, this is a tsunami."