Budget deal faces big obstacles, New Year’s deadline
WASHINGTON—With hopes of a “grand bargain” long gone, congressional negotiators now are seeking a more modest deal before year-end to ease the automatic spending cuts that are squeezing both the Pentagon and domestic federal programs. But the going is getting rougher.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she would withhold support from any compromise to ease across-the-board cuts until Republicans also agree to renew expiring unemployment benefits for America’s long-term jobless, adding a major complication.
At the same time, conservatives are balking at a proposal to raise fees on airline tickets to pay for TSA agents as part of an agreement, another hurdle.
GOP leaders, meanwhile, are preparing a backup plan for averting another government shutdown in January if there’s no budget deal by then.
Negotiators on Capitol Hill are trying hard to close out a deal but are facing resistance from Pelosi and other Democrats determined to add $25 billion to extend federally-paid jobless benefits. Those benefits average $269 a week to people whose 26 weeks of state-paid unemployment benefits have run out.
“We cannot, cannot support a budget agreement that does not include unemployment insurance in the budget or as a sidebar in order to move it all along,” Pelosi said Thursday at a hearing to publicize the plight of people set to lose the jobless benefits.
Her statement was significant because she is going to have to supply Democratic votes if any deal is going to pass the Republican-majority House. Many conservatives are likely to abandon a compromise agreement over fee proposals such as increasing Transportation Security Administration charges that could add $5 to the cost of a typical round-trip airline ticket.
“If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s a duck,” said Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala. “This is a tax increase, nothing more.”
The budget talks are just one item in a packed year-end agenda for Congress. House Speaker John Boehner insists the House will exit Washington by next Friday, leaving little time to pass a budget bill, a defense policy measure and renewal of food stamps and farm programs.
With the massive defense policy bill stalled in the Senate, leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees have been working on a backup plan to move quickly on a pared-back version in which all disputes have been resolved in advance.
The House hopes to vote next week on the new, pre-cooked defense bill and then send it to the Senate, which would clear it and send it to President Barack Obama, extending lawmakers streak of passage of an authorization bill to 52 years, according to House and Senate congressional aides.
The bill would include some of the more controversial elements on new rules to stem sexual assaults in the military and provisions on handling terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The fallback plan, however, is contingent on Senate Democrats and Republicans abandoning their push for amendments on new sanctions on Iran, National Security Agency spying, Afghanistan and other issues.