By Jordain Carney - 09/16/19 06:00 AM EDT 2,109
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Senate government funding talks are off
to a rough start with 10 working days to go until the shutdown deadline.
The impasse is
throwing into question if senators will be able to get any of the fiscal 2020
bills through the chamber this month, a setback for Republicans who wanted to
clear a major package before October.
Senate
Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby
(R-Ala.) said he still wants to bring bills to the Senate floor for a vote but
warned that lawmakers need to “negotiate the terrain.”
“We’ve been down that road before,” he said, asked how the funding talks get
unstuck. “There’s got to be a resolution to it — it could be sooner. It could
be later.”
The partisan
breakdown has left lawmakers visibly flummoxed about how to resolve the
impasse.
Sen. John Cornyn
(R-Texas) described the negotiations as “pretty fragile.”
“If they break
down we’re looking at potentially a long-term CR,” he said, referring to a
continuing resolution.
Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.), meanwhile, warned against getting “bogged down in too many foxholes”
and disclosed that he’d turned to a higher power to help resolve the
fight.
“I’m praying for
Chairman Shelby and ranking member [Patrick] Leahy that the curtains will part
here and we’ll figure a way to move forward,” said McConnell, who is also a
member of the Appropriations Committee.
But a quick
resolution is nowhere in sight with senators at a stalemate over major
provisions, including the top-line spending figures for each of the bills,
known as 302(b)s.
The Senate
Appropriations Committee passed the top-line figures, a mammoth fiscal 2020
defense bill and an energy and water funding bill on Thursday — marking the
first bills cleared by the panel despite having less than two weeks until the
end of the fiscal year.
But neither the
302(b)s nor the defense bill currently have the votes to pass the Senate,
where they would need the support of at least seven Democrats if every
Republican voted for them.
Democrats are
taking issue with the top-line figures, which break down how much money each
bill will get, because they believe Republicans are padding extra money toward
the homeland security bill. And they balked at supporting the Pentagon spending
bill after Republicans rejected an amendment that would have prevented Trump
from shifting money in the bill toward the border wall without congressional
sign off.
Sen. Dick Durbin
(Ill.) — the Senate minority whip and top Democrat on the Appropriations
Defense Subcommittee — warned that the spending bill for the Pentagon is stuck
until they resolve the fight over top-line spending figures.
“It doesn’t go
anywhere until we get an agreement on the 302(b) allocations. ... We need to
have the roadmap to take us all the way home,” he said.
Republicans could
bring them to the floor anyways just to have Democrats vote down the bills in
what would amount to a messaging fight. Democrats previously blocked the
defense spending bill in 2016 as part of an effort to force a budget deal;
McConnell, who is currently up for reelection, used the votes to paint
Democrats as undermining national security.
Spokesmen for
McConnell didn’t respond to a request for comment about whether the GOP leader
would bring up the defense bill. But they are expected to announce guidance for
floor consideration of the spending bills this week, suggesting McConnell does
still intend to bring some legislation to the floor.
Democrats are
making it clear they won’t provide Republicans with the votes unless they sit
down and renegotiate the spending legislation.
Sen. Chris Murphy
(D-Conn.) said he thought Republicans “pulled the rug out from under us.”
“They've got to
realize the mistake they made. They've made a tactical error, and it won't be
the first time that a majority party has had to correct itself,” he said.
Asked if any
spending bills could pass on the floor, he added, “Absolutely not.”
“You had every
member of the Democratic caucus voting 'no'” in committee, he said. “I think
we've got to renegotiate the allocations, and if we negotiate the allocations
we can move forward.”
Senate Minority
Leader Charles Schumer
(D-N.Y.) characterized efforts to fund the government as being at a
“crossroads.”
“No one wants to
resort to a continuing resolution or, God forbid, another Republican-, President Trump-inspired
government shutdown. But it takes two to tango. My Republican colleagues must
know that what happens in the next few days and weeks will determine whether we
can proceed with a bipartisan appropriations process this fall or not,” he said
from the Senate floor late last week.
The path forward
doesn’t get easier for lawmakers.
With the
full-year funding bills stuck in limbo, Congress will need to pass a short-term
spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, by the end of the
month. The House is expected to vote on a bill this week that would fund
the government until Nov. 21.
And behemoth
funding fights are still awaiting senators, who have already punted both the
bill for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and
funding for the State Department over concerns that Democrats would try to
insert abortion-related language into the bills.
The Senate
Appropriations Committee still has to take up a funding bill for the Department
of Veterans Affairs and military construction. The bill will be controversial
because Republicans are expected to include money to replace the $3.6 billion
in military construction funding that Trump redirected to the border
wall.
And funding for
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considered so controversial that
Republican senators say the aren’t sure that they will even bring the bill
up.
Shelby
characterized the spending talks as in “round one.” But asked if he could move
DHS funding in his committee, Shelby demurred.
“That’s
challenging,” he said, before throwing his arms up as he got in an elevator.
“Sooner or later we’re going to have to do something.”
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