President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were meeting tonight with the top two leaders in Congress to try to avert a U.S. government shutdown at week’s end that could furlough 800,000 federal workers and halt some government services.
The president “has now decided that not enough progress has been made,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters in announcing the White House session as Obama was traveling today in Pennsylvania and New York.
The meeting with House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, comes as Boehner cited “some progress” earlier today in talks over a spending plan for the remainder of the fiscal year. He also vowed to continue fighting for some additional spending cuts and policy provisions that Democrats are resisting.
After the White House meeting was announced, Reid said on the Senate floor that Republicans have been too uncompromising, and that both sides needed to make concessions to end the budget fight.
“It’s time for my friends in the House of Representatives to stop campaigning and start governing,” Reid said.
Obama earlier this week said it would be “inexcusable” for Congress to fall short of an accord and allow federal agencies to be closed for the first time in 15 years.
Current government spending authority is scheduled to expire at the end of the day April 8. Without an agreement, all non-essential government functions would close.
Congressional officials negotiated privately as leaders publicly feuded over proposed spending cuts and the policy directives, and the administration and Congress prepared for a shutdown.
House Republican leaders say they will move through the chamber tomorrow a temporary funding measure that would keep the government operating through April 15, impose $12 billion in budget cuts and fund the Pentagon for the remainder of the year. Senate Democratic leaders have said they oppose the bill, meaning it may end up being a symbolic measure.
“I think we’ve made some progress, yes” on an agreement, Boehner said after a telephone conversation with Obama this morning followed by a meeting with all House Republicans. “But we are not finished, not by a long shot.”
A leading Senate Democrat said he was more optimistic than earlier in the week that an accord could be reached.
“I feel better today than I did yesterday,” said Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat. “There’s a direct negotiation. There have been things put on the table that had not been discussed before, and I think that we’re moving toward closure.”
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3 Responses
If you believe that but for deficit spending we would be in a 1930s style depression, you shouldn’t compromise (which is what the Democrats feel).
If you believe that the massive deficits have put us in a position similar to Germany in the early 1920s, you shouldn’t compromise (which is what the Republicans feel).
So where is there room for compromise?
Re Comment No. 1: There is plenty of room for compromise within the walls of the US Capitol. There is no room for compromise inside No. 1’s head.
Let’s see…
This is LAST YEAR’S budget, meaning the 2010-2011 budget which should have been submitted for a vote about A YEAR AGO.
So why wasn’t it done a year ago? Simple. Its because the democrat party – the one with the super majority at the time – didn’t want to show their cards to the voters. They knew a budget with more, much more, spending and no cost cutting would mean a lost election which BH it did anyway. So when it came time for a budget the democrats punted and gave the ball to the new Congress.
The way this works Constitutionally is that the House does the budget and then the Senate. The House did theirs but the Socialist Democrat Party which controls the Senate, refuses to act on it.
Each Govt shutdown ends up being the responsibility of the president because if the president wants to sign something he will. Present Obama, our Teflon President, gives off that Community Agitator impression of not being involved but you could bet any money if he cared (he should!!) he would really be involved.
The end of the Obama Regime won’t come soon enough!