Pelosi: Republicans goal is gov't shutdown
Pelosi: Republicans using opposition to health care reform as excuse to shut down government
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, left, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, during a news conference with conservative Congressional Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013. Cruz and Lee stand as the Senate’s dynamic duo for conservatives, crusading against President Barack Obama’s health care law while infuriating many congressional Republicans with a tactic they consider futile, self-serving and detrimental to the party’s political hopes in 2014. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi says Republicans are using their opposition to health-care reform as an excuse to shut down the federal government.
The California Democrat says anti-government ideologues dominate the GOP and for them forcing a shutdown would be a victory.
She says, however, that GOP efforts to derail health-care reform and shut down the government have "no prospect of prevailing."
Pelosi says the goal of some in the GOP is to get the government out of the lives of Americans by handing Social Security over to private bankers and allowing Medicare to "wither on the vine."
The former House speaker made her comments Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."
