Government Shutdown 2011 : Comes Down to Planned Parenthood Funding
WASHINGTON - (Fox) Congressional aides worked through the night Wednesday after a high-stakes meeting between President Obama and congressional leaders failed to reach a deal on the federal budget.
Obama called the discussion “frank” and “constructive,” but did not articulate how the two sides would forge an agreement to keep the government running past the Friday deadline.
“If we are serious about getting something done we should be able to complete a deal, get it passed and avert a shutdown,” Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room.
A few minutes later outside the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner stood side by side to update reporters on the talks.
“We’re not there yet,” Reid said, but both sides were committed to hammering out a deal and keeping the government running.
- “No one wants a shutdown,” Boehner said, adding there were “honest differences” and their staffs will work to get the budget issue resolved.
“We’ve narrowed the issues significantly,” Reid said.
The government already is operating on a short-term spending measure because Republicans and Democrats haven’t been able to agree on how deeply to cut and what to ax, and as a precaution, House Republicans are preparing to bring yet another stopgap budget bill to the floor Thursday to buy more time for negotiations on a long term bill.
The proposal would be the third short-term budget bill in two months. The prospect of voting on another stopgap has frustrated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, some of whom have vowed to oppose one. But while dozens of GOP members defected the last time around, House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News he has enough GOP support to pass this bill without any Democrats.
“We don’t need one Democratic vote,” he said.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said earlier Wednesday that he would be willing to help Republicans whip up support for a short-term spending plan. However, he also said he opposes the specific package that House Speaker John Boehner has been pushing — a one-week bill that would cut $12 billion, while also funding the military for the rest of the year. And Boehner said Wednesday that’s exactly the plan he wants to put on the floor.
“I think this is the responsible thing to do,” Boehner said. “I would hope the Senate can pass it and the president would sign it into law.”
It’s unclear whether the bill can indeed win enough support to avert a shutdown, or do anything to advance the broader negotiations over a half-year budget. Expectations have been changing by the minute in Washington as lawmakers try to craft a budget bill while at the same time jockeying for political advantage in the media, assigning blame in advance to the other side in case of a shutdown.
Meanwhile, the day-to-day functions of government — from running national parks to sending out tax refunds — were hanging in the balance. The administration and Congress have been preparing for the possibility of a partial shutdown, warning that a number of basic services would go on hiatus and that a shutdown could hurt the economy.
Lawmakers appeared to be caught in a political perfect storm, with several simultaneous budget deals complicating negotiations over the rest of this year’s budget. Conservative lawmakers want to cut as much as possible now, to set the tone for talks over next year’s budget and spending for the rest of the decade. GOP Rep. Paul Ryan just introduced a plan to cut deficits by $4.4 trillion over 10 years. President Obama and Democrats, by contrast, want to use a “scalpel,” rather than an ax, to address the deficit.
An upcoming vote on whether to raise the debt ceiling doesn’t make things any easier.
Congressional budget negotiations broke up before dawn on Friday without an agreement, putting the government on a path to a shutdown when financing for federal agencies runs out at midnight.Senior Congressional officials said the negotiations in the Capitol ended about 3 a.m. and that no new talks were scheduled. President Obama late on Thursday had urged negotiators to reach a deal in the morning if possible so the government would not have to put into motion the machinery of a shutdown.
Officials said that Democrats had made concessions on both money and policy, and had moved toward the position of House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio on the overall level of spending, agreeing to $37 billion in cuts, with less of it coming from the Pentagon than Democrats had initially sought.
Democratic officials familiar with the negotiations said that proposed restrictions on money for Planned Parenthood remained the chief sticking point, and that attempts to resolve the disagreement through alternatives like allowing a separate floor vote on the issue had not been successful. Democrats said they were told by the Republicans that the votes of anti-abortion social conservatives would be needed to move any budget measure through the House. budget for the rest of the year is in place. TAGS: government shutdown, government shutdown 1995, goverment shutdown, government, military pay, Parenthood funding
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