Shutdown fears back, growing
Negotiations are deadlocked over funding for wall
WASHINGTON — Congressional aides on both sides of the aisle say they don’t see how an appropriations impasse ends without a partial government shutdown just in time for Christmas Eve.
President Donald Trump signed a continuing resolution into law Friday that would change the expiration date of the stopgap measure enacted before the midterm elections to Dec. 21. But he wasted little time in taking aim at Democratic leaders for “playing political games” on border security funding, even as he prepares to sit down with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York on Tuesday.
While many lawmakers are expressing confidence a shutdown will be avoided, aides speaking on condition of anonymity said there is a widespread fear that the talks will collapse and lead to a shutdown.
The Democratic leaders plan to offer Trump $1.3 billion in funding for a border fence when they meet at the White House, a bid that falls short of the $5 billion Trump is demanding to fund a border wall. Talks are deadlocked over funding for the wall.
Schumer had previously suggested Trump accept $1.6 billion in border funding, the funding level included in a Senate bill with bipartisan support. But that $1.6 billion would struggle to pass the House, where Democrats won’t support it because they say it’s too much and Republicans because it’s not enough.
If no deal is reached by the end of next week, fund- ing will run out for the Homeland Security Department and other federal agencies. Those agencies, making up about 25 percent of the federal government, are operating on a shortterm spending bill Congress passed last week.
Tuesday’s meeting will be the first gathering of Trump, Schumer and Pelosi ahead of the shutdown deadline. In recent weeks the two sides have dug in, and it’s not clear where compromise might lie.
With Republicans about to lose their majority in the House, the president and his GOP allies are determined to make one last attempt to get money for the wall Trump promised to build along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump claimed during the campaign that Mexico would pay for the wall but now wants U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill.
There appears to be little appetite for a shutdown among Democrats and Republicans in Congress, especially days before Christmas. Republicans have taken the blame for shutdowns in 1995-1996, and again in 2013. Democrats took a beating when they triggered a shutdown over failure to extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in January.
Making matters tougher for both chambers, the White House is asking for additional dollars in latestage requests that appropriators cannot accommodate without busting the spending caps agreed to in February or cutting elsewhere within the bills they have already put forward or declaring some of the money an “emergency” that shouldn’t count toward the budget caps.
That includes more money for wildfire suppression and a new $190 million ask to help care for unaccompanied minor children detained after crossing the border, for instance.
“We’re at an impasse right now,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said last week. “I think that something’s got to be worked out between the president and Schumer and Pelosi, and us, but them mainly because a lot of us believe that we’re this close to closing” on remaining spending bills.
During behind the scenes talks that have taken place since Thanksgiving, Republicans have pressed for agreement on a seven-bill package that would include $5 billion for the wall — all in one year, in an initial offer, or spread over two years, in a subsequent offer.
Democrats rejected those proposals, offering instead a six-bill package combined with a continuing resolution extending the current level of spending in the Homeland Security bill until the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.
One possible approach to compromise that might get support from both sides would be to provide the $1.6 billion for border fencing in the Senate bill, or possibly a little less, but provide additional funding for the wall in an advance appropriation for fiscal 2020, resulting in more than $1.6 billion over two years.
Trump would get more than the $1.6 billion in the Senate bill over two years, but Democrats could say they held the line in the first year.
Another potential path would be to provide more than $1.6 billion for border security in both fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2020 — still short of $5 billion over two years — with the caveat that the bill would include language that Democrats say would restrict how the money is spent.
Short of a border agreement, the easiest path might be to punt into early next year with a stopgap funding measure for all seven bills.
Republican and Democratic leaders would prefer to pass as many of the spending bills as possible, which could result in a six-bill package combined with a continuing resolution for Homeland Security that would expire either before the end of the fiscal year or run through Sept. 30.
Washington Post contributed.