Lawmakers negotiate deal to keep government open
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans and Democrats forged a hard-won agreement Sunday night on a huge $1 trillion-plus spending bill that would fund operations of virtually every federal agency through September, denying President Trump funding for a border wall and rejecting his cuts to popular domestic programs.
Aides to lawmakers involved in the talks announced the agreement after weeks of negotiations. It’s expected to be made public early Monday.
The catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during Trump’s short tenure in the White House. While losing on the wall along the U.S.Mexico border, Trump won a $15 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military.
GOP leaders demurred from trying to use the must-do spending bill to “defund” Planned Parenthood. The White House also backed away from language to take away grants from sanctuary cities such as San Francisco that withhold information about people’s immigration status from federal authorities.
The measure funds the remainder of the 2017 budget year, rejecting cuts to popular domestic programs targeted by Trump, such as medical research and infrastructure grants.
Successful votes on the bill would clear away any remaining threat of a government shutdown — at least until the Oct. 1 start of the 2018 budget year. Trump has submitted a partial 2018 budget promising a 10 percent increase for the Pentagon, financed by cuts to foreign aid and other nondefense programs that negotiators on the pending measure protected.
“This agreement is a good agreement for the American people and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a key force in the talks. “The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren’t used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure.”
Trump said at nearly every campaign stop last year that Mexico would pay for the 2,000-mile border wall, a claim Mexican leaders have repeatedly rejected. The administration sought $1.4 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars for the wall and related costs in the spending bill, but Trump later relented and said the issue could wait until September.
But Trump obtained $1.5 billion for border security measures such as more than 5,000 additional detention beds, an upgrade in border infrastructure and technologies such as surveillance.
The measure is assured of winning bipartisan support in votes this week; the House and Senate have until midnight Friday to pass the measure to avert a government shutdown. It’s unclear how much support the measure will receive from GOP conservatives and how warmly it will be received by the White House.
Republicans are also eager to move on to other issues such as overhauling the tax code and reviving their moribund effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s health care law.