Optimism reigns after Capitol Hill meeting
WASHINGTON — The White House and top congressional leaders from both major parties issued upbeat assessments Wednesday after a Capitol Hill meeting in which they forged progress on a stack of unfinished Washington business, starting with a hoped-for bipartisan budget deal.
The session in the office of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., came with little more than two weeks before the next threatened government shutdown. Topping the agenda was an effort to spare both the Pentagon and domestic Cabinet agencies from spending cuts. Other issues, including immigration, disaster aid and health care, were discussed in hopes of resolving the raft of leftover issues.
Both sides issued bland but positive statements after the session, which lasted more than an hour and included White House budget director Mick Mulvaney.
“We had a positive and productive meeting and all parties have agreed to continue discussing a path forward to quickly resolve all of the issues ahead of us,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in a joint statement.
The White House, Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a joint statement that they “hope that further discussions will lead to an agreement soon.” McConnell briefed fellow Republicans afterward and told them the session was “surprisingly good,” according to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
The budget debate has been roiled by a demand from Democrats that nondefense programs win increases equal to those to be awarded to the Pentagon.
“There is no reason why funding for our national security and our service members should be limited by an arbitrary political formula that bears no relationship to actual need,” McConnell said earlier in the day.
But unlike the recently passed tax bill and the GOP’s failed efforts to repeal the Obama-era health-care law, the upcoming agenda will require votes from Democrats.
Particularly challenging is the question of immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children but who face deportation in March because of Trump’s decision to strip away Obama-issued protections for them.
Democrats say they won’t go along with any budget deal until those immigrants, commonly referred to as Dreamers, are guaranteed protections. That has sparked pushback from GOP leaders who insist on dealing with politically nettlesome immigration issues on a separate track.
Cornyn said he and other Republicans on the Judiciary panel, which has jurisdiction over immigration, are meeting with Trump at the White House on Thursday to discuss the issue.
Before Wedneday’s meeting, three former Homeland Security secretaries warned congressional leaders that the window for legislative action to protect the undocumented immigrants will close by the middle of January, two months before a period outlined by the White House.
The letter was signed by Jeh Johnson and Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security secretaries under President Barack Obama, and Michael Chertoff, a Homeland Security secretary under President George W. Bush.
‘‘We write not only in strong support of this legislation, but to stress that it should be enacted speedily, in order to meet the significant administrative requirements of implementation, as well as the need to provide certainty for employers and these young people,’’ the letter said.