Amid shutdown threat, GOP bloc tries pushing deadline

WASHINGTON >> Attempts to avert a government shutdown hit a snag late Monday as a bloc of conservative lawmakers pressured top GOP leaders to set a new spending deadline for just after Christmas — instead of just before — in a bid to maintain the party’s leverage in talks with Democrats over spending levels and other year-end concerns.

Government funding is set to expire on Friday, giving Republicans who control Congress just a few days to shore up support. President Donald Trump and top congressional leaders agreed to meet on Thursday afternoon to discuss details of a new yearend spending agreement — just hours before spending runs out.

Over the weekend, Republican leaders unveiled a bill to keep the government operating through Dec. 22, giving bipartisan negotiators more time to reach an agreement.

But in a sign of trouble, members of the House Freedom Caucus on Monday night briefly withheld support for a bill to formally launch negotiations with the Senate on a GOP tax reform plan — not over issues with the Senate legislation, but as a way to extract concessions from Republican leaders on the spending measure.

Freedom Caucus members ultimately helped Republicans approve the launch of formal tax negotiations, but leaders of the bloc said that House GOP leaders had agreed to keep talking about possibly setting the next deadline on Dec. 30.

Rep. Mark Meadows, RN.C., who chairs the Freedom Caucus, said his group would rather see the next spending deadline fall after Christmas and asked GOP leaders to consider Dec. 30 — a date that would require lawmakers to interrupt their planned holiday recess. Meadows said he had extracted “a commitment to talk further.”

“Ultimately there are no good decisions that get made three days before Christmas, ever,” Meadows said.

Signs of growing conservative concerns surfaced during the vote on the tax bill around 7 p.m. as caucus members either withheld their votes or were voting “no” against launching tax negotiations. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who was not in the U.S. Capitol during the vote, called Meadows during the vote and agreed to raise the possibility of moving back the spending deadline with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., according to aides. On the House floor, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was also spotted in an intense back-andforth with several Freedom Caucus members.