A blow-up this week over a potential negotiating session to end the partial government shutdown indicates the lack of movement toward resolving the impasse.
Democrats rejected an offer by Senate Republicans to meet this week with GOP leadership and Trump administration representatives to hash out an agreement on Department of Homeland Security funding, according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who chairs DHS’s spending panel.
They’re holding up that tiff as evidence Democrats are politically comfortable with the funding lapse, which is approaching its one-month mark later this week.
- “This is borderline obnoxious,” Thune said in a floor speech. “This is indefensible, it is unjustifiable, and there are American people who are going to hurt.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that claim was “a lot of bull.” Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Thune did not offer such a meeting. Senate Democrats and the White House have traded proposals, but progress has been minimal.
- “I don’t know where that came from,” Murray said. “What’s missing here is the White House saying they are going to send us a serious offer.”
The proposed confab between the White House, Senate Democrats, Thune, and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) would have taken place Monday or Tuesday, according to Britt.
- “We have been asking them to sit down,” Britt said. “If you actually want to see reforms, then wouldn’t you get in a room and figure out how to do that?”
Republicans are moving the goalposts, argued Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the ranking member of DHS’s spending panel. Republicans originally urged Democrats to try to reach an agreement with the White House rather than with GOP lawmakers, Murphy said.
- “This is incoherent,” Murphy said. “They just need to tell us what to do.”
Senators will cast another procedural vote this week on legislation
Democrats have rejected that bill before, and none are signaling they plan to vote differently this time around.
- “We are very serene with what is going on,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a senior appropriator in the Democratic whip operation.
Iran Could Advance $1.5T Defense Topline
The White House should use its forthcoming request for emergency spending on the military to help Trump get his historic defense spending topline, the top House Republican appropriator said.
Appropriators expect the Trump administration to seek emergency money to replenish munitions stockpiles used during its strikes with Israel on Iran, though it’s unclear when it will arrive on Capitol Hill.
That package could help the Trump meet his request for a $1.5 trillion topline for the Defense Department in the upcoming fiscal year, Cole said.
- “This would be a good opportunity to front-load that and get it in early,” House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters at his party’s retreat at Trump’s Doral, Fla. golf resort.
Republicans were anticipating an “inevitable” supplemental funding request for the military even before operations in Iran began, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters at the retreat.
Lawmakers may end up packaging funding for Iran with other emergency spending, such as potential aid for farmers suffering from high gas prices or disaster relief, Thune said yesterday.
- “There are probably a number of issues around a potential legislative vehicle that might come up that would have more than one issue addressed,” Thune told reporters in Washington.
Cole cautioned that adding too many items to a supplemental appropriations bill could bog it down, but deferred to leadership on that call.
- “I would prefer to keep this as clean as possible,” Cole said. “If it’s going to be a war supplemental, it ought to primarily be a war supplemental.”
Election Bill An Unlikely Megabill Rider
Republicans couldn’t add legislation with federal election administration mandates to a party-line budget bill because it isn’t budgetary in nature, said House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).
- “The SAVE Act does not appear to me as something that you could use reconciliation to advance, that’s going to be a policy matter,” Arrington told reporters in Florida. “There are some issues that are just primarily policy that can’t be loaded up in good faith.”
The comments from the chief lawmaker responsible for kick-starting the reconciliation process are the latest blow to hopes of moving Trump’s top legislative priority without worrying about the Senate filibuster.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), an appropriator advocating for another budget megabill that includes the so-called SAVE America Act, insisted yesterday it could be crafted to conform with Senate rules.
- “A lot of the things that I’ve seen that were never supposed to pass a Byrd Bath end up passing, and I’ve seen things that I thought were slam dunks in terms of a Byrd Bath get rejected,” he said in reference to meetings with the Senate parliamentarian.
Johnson and Thune both said this week they’re talking to colleagues about potential items that could ride on another budget reconciliation package.
But Thune said folding in election legislation would be “very, very difficult.”
Poor Fiscal Outlook On Senate Display
Taxwriters will get reminder of the nation’s unsustainable deficit projections from the fleet of budget hawks called to speak to a Senate Finance panel this afternoon.
Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth Subcommittee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) will likely focus on the spending side of the ledger while Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), the ranking member, will emphasize the multi-trillion-dollar deficit hit from Republicans’ tax cuts law.
The hearing will give lawmakers a chance to query Congressional Budget Office Director Phillip Swagel on his team’s latest projections, which showed deficits on moderate economic growth assumptions increasing by $1.4 trillion over the next decade, thanks in part to Trump’s 2025 tax law and his immigration policies.
Lawmakers will also hear from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which recently proposed policy plans that would limit deficit impact from the next recession or other economic shock.
Rising deficits weigh on consumers, and voters. The Budget Lab at Yale estimates the rise in interest rates exacerbated by the country’s debt load costs homeowners $2,500 a year in borrowing costs.
“People can argue about what percentage of this debt increase was necessary for economic or policy reasons,” Martha Gimbel, the Lab’s executive director and co-founder, plans to say, according to her prepared remarks. “But we can agree that there should be some plan to handle the fiscal impacts of those choices.”
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