Talks could soon yield spending, debt deal

An agreement would stave off a government shutdown

WASHINGTON — Washington negotiators are closing in on a budget and debt deal that would stave off the chance of a government shutdown this fall and allow Congress to speed through legislation to increase the government’s borrowing cap.

The emerging two-year framework would satisfy demands for an outline to guide congressional work on more than $1.3 trillion in agency operating budgets. It would still need to be fleshed out in further negotiations, and puts off battles over political land mines like immigration and President Donald Trump’s unfulfilled promises of a border wall.

The chief advocates of the deal include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., along with top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York. Many House conservatives are likely to oppose it as spending too much on Democratic domestic initiatives and ignoring budget deficits estimated at $1 trillion. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, focused chiefly on the need to increase the debt limit, is the chief negotiator for the Trump administration.

Pelosi and Schumer spoke with Mnuchin on Wednesday, and the talks have gotten down to timing issues. Pelosi told reporters that “if we’re really going to do this by next Thursday before we leave we have to have some agreement this week.”

“I am genuinely optimistic,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., a key Pelosi ally.

Also driving the negotiations is the threat of cuts averaging 10% to agency accounts, reversing recent gains for the Pentagon and hardwon increases in domestic programs favored by Democrats. Those cuts are the final leftovers of a failed 2011 budget and debt deal negotiated by former President Barack Obama and thenSpeaker John Boehner that used the threat of the automatic cuts to try to prompt additional progress on the deficit.