Mnuchin: Budget deal with Pelosi ‘very close’

WASHINGTON — It’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell vs. hardliners in the White House as lawmakers pursue a deal on federal spending and the debt. And the hardliners, wary of further increases to federal spending, appear to be losing.

Talks between Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin appear to be progressing. Mnuchin on Monday told reporters, “I think we’re very close to a deal,” though he cautioned that “these deals are complicated.”

Mnuchin says increasing the $22 trillion debt limit needs to be done this month to avert any risk of a U.S. default on obligations like bond payments. He said he doesn’t think there will be a government shutdown when the budget year ends Sept. 30, nor does he think “either party or anybody wants to put the credit of the United States government at risk.”

Previous negotiations toward a budget deal had included White House conservatives like Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. But Mnuchin is taking the lead for the administration in the talks with Pelosi, as the speaker doesn’t have a productive relationship with Mulvaney.

Mnuchin and Pelosi were slated to talk again later Monday, according to a Pelosi spokesman.

The talks increasingly hinge on a durable, powerful and familiar political coalition: GOP defense hawks demanding bigger Pentagon budgets and Democrats seeking equal treatment for domestic priorities.

The alternatives to a deal are distasteful to both sides, and include freezing spending at current levels and operating most of the government essentially on autopilot under a measure known as a continuing resolution.