Obama Invites Republicans to Meet on Budget
By CARL HULSE
Published: April 4, 2011
WASHINGTON — Trying to head off a crisis, President Obama invited Congressional leaders to the White House for a meeting Tuesday to try to resolve the impasse that is threatening to shutter a large part of the federal government as of Saturday.
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The administration also accelerated preparations for a potential shutdown even as House Republicans demanded on Monday that the president and Senate Democrats agree to federal spending cuts beyond $33 billion for this year as budget talks hit serious new obstacles just four days before financing for federal agencies runs out.
“We are aware of the calendar, and to be prudent and prepare for the chance that Congress may not pass a funding bill in time, O.M.B. today encouraged agency heads to begin sharing their contingency plans with senior managers throughout their organizations to ensure that they will have their feedback and input,” Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said Monday.
Facing the prospect of a politically charged impasse, House Republicans on Monday night began preparing a one-week stopgap measure that would combine $12 billion in new cuts with a measure financing the Pentagon through Sept. 30.
Republicans could then send it to the Senate and try to force Democrats to either accept it or confront accusations that they were responsible for shutting down the government. Republicans said they were also preparing guidance to lawmakers on House operations in the event of a shutdown.
The White House injected another element into the widening disputes Tuesday, with the Treasury Department sending a letter to Congressional leaders to announce that the federal government will exhaust its ability to borrow money under current law during the second week in July.
The government will hit the debt limit — the maximum amount that it can borrow — “no later than May 16,” the letter said. After that, “extraordinary measures” can create roughly eight weeks of wiggle room. Some Republicans have said they would not vote to increase the debt limit without commitments from the administration and Congressional Democrats for substantial reductions in spending.
But the administration warned of consequences in the event of a stalemate. “The longer Congress fails to act, the more we risk that investors here and around the world will lose confidence in our ability to meet our commitments and obligations,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner wrote in the letter.
The announcement by Speaker John A. Boehner that Republicans would not settle for the $33 billion in cuts that Senate Democrats and the White House have portrayed as the agreed-upon middle ground in the spending fight added a new complication to already-strained talks between House negotiators and the Senate leadership.
Mr. Boehner also accused Democrats of relying on “smoke and mirrors” to make their proposed reductions look more substantial.
“It’s become sadly evident to me, and to the American people, that the White House and Senate Democrats are just not serious yet about enacting real spending cuts,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement.
Democrats said Mr. Boehner was increasingly caught between conservative members of his rank-and-file who were insisting that House Republicans not budge from the $61 billion in cuts already approved by the House and his own efforts to find an agreement and avoid a shutdown that could damage his party.
Some suggested that Mr. Boehner was talking tough to show House Republicans that he was fighting on their behalf, but they hoped he would still ultimately make some deal. “As long as he continues to negotiate, it’s O.K. by us if he needs to strike a different pose publicly,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat.
Aides said negotiations over the weekend faltered somewhat over the push by Democrats to get $8 billion of the cuts from automatic spending in programs like transportation, health care, Pell grants for needy college students and agricultural subsidies.
But Mr. Boehner and his fellow Republicans have raised objections to some of those proposals as gimmicks, saying, for example, that the suggested reduction in transportation financing amounted to a one-time cut in money that most likely was not going to be spent regardless.
On the other hand, Democrats familiar with the negotiations said members of their party were resisting the Republican push for about $2.5 billion more than they wanted in certain programs.
The additional spending that Republicans have proposed include $840 million for military construction, which mostly covers projects on bases in the United States and overseas; $1 billion for the Pentagon; $500 million for commerce, justice and science programs, and $200 million for domestic security spending.
Democrats said they also proposed a list of previously approved spending to rescind, but Republicans rejected it. The list included money for weaponry unrelated to continuing conflicts overseas, for the National Guard and for unrelated research.
Both Republicans and Democrats said that they were eager to avoid shutting down the government but that the tightening time-frame increased the odds that government agencies could be closed for lack of financing.
Inside the White House there seemed to be an increased sense of urgency. Administration officials have spent weeks resisting the idea that they are actively preparing for a shutdown, and have said only that federal agencies are updating their existing plans. But on Monday, some officials said privately that the pace of preparations was accelerating — even as Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, pushed back against the idea that the administration is bracing for the budget talks to fail.
“There is nothing unusual that this government, this administration is doing with regards to the situation we are in now,” Mr. Carney told reporters, “so I would not say bracing for, because we at the White House and the president believes that there is room — ample room for compromise.”
“We are aware of the calendar, and to be prudent and prepare for the chance that Congress may not pass a funding bill in time, O.M.B. today encouraged agency heads to begin sharing their contingency plans with senior managers throughout their organizations to ensure that they will have their feedback and input,” Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said Monday.
Facing the prospect of a politically charged impasse, House Republicans on Monday night began preparing a one-week stopgap measure that would combine $12 billion in new cuts with a measure financing the Pentagon through Sept. 30.
Republicans could then send it to the Senate and try to force Democrats to either accept it or confront accusations that they were responsible for shutting down the government. Republicans said they were also preparing guidance to lawmakers on House operations in the event of a shutdown.
The White House injected another element into the widening disputes Tuesday, with the Treasury Department sending a letter to Congressional leaders to announce that the federal government will exhaust its ability to borrow money under current law during the second week in July.
The government will hit the debt limit — the maximum amount that it can borrow — “no later than May 16,” the letter said. After that, “extraordinary measures” can create roughly eight weeks of wiggle room. Some Republicans have said they would not vote to increase the debt limit without commitments from the administration and Congressional Democrats for substantial reductions in spending.
But the administration warned of consequences in the event of a stalemate. “The longer Congress fails to act, the more we risk that investors here and around the world will lose confidence in our ability to meet our commitments and obligations,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner wrote in the letter.
The announcement by Speaker John A. Boehner that Republicans would not settle for the $33 billion in cuts that Senate Democrats and the White House have portrayed as the agreed-upon middle ground in the spending fight added a new complication to already-strained talks between House negotiators and the Senate leadership.
Mr. Boehner also accused Democrats of relying on “smoke and mirrors” to make their proposed reductions look more substantial.
“It’s become sadly evident to me, and to the American people, that the White House and Senate Democrats are just not serious yet about enacting real spending cuts,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement.
Democrats said Mr. Boehner was increasingly caught between conservative members of his rank-and-file who were insisting that House Republicans not budge from the $61 billion in cuts already approved by the House and his own efforts to find an agreement and avoid a shutdown that could damage his party.
Some suggested that Mr. Boehner was talking tough to show House Republicans that he was fighting on their behalf, but they hoped he would still ultimately make some deal. “As long as he continues to negotiate, it’s O.K. by us if he needs to strike a different pose publicly,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat.
Aides said negotiations over the weekend faltered somewhat over the push by Democrats to get $8 billion of the cuts from automatic spending in programs like transportation, health care, Pell grants for needy college students and agricultural subsidies.
But Mr. Boehner and his fellow Republicans have raised objections to some of those proposals as gimmicks, saying, for example, that the suggested reduction in transportation financing amounted to a one-time cut in money that most likely was not going to be spent regardless.
On the other hand, Democrats familiar with the negotiations said members of their party were resisting the Republican push for about $2.5 billion more than they wanted in certain programs.
The additional spending that Republicans have proposed include $840 million for military construction, which mostly covers projects on bases in the United States and overseas; $1 billion for the Pentagon; $500 million for commerce, justice and science programs, and $200 million for domestic security spending.
Democrats said they also proposed a list of previously approved spending to rescind, but Republicans rejected it. The list included money for weaponry unrelated to continuing conflicts overseas, for the National Guard and for unrelated research.
Both Republicans and Democrats said that they were eager to avoid shutting down the government but that the tightening time-frame increased the odds that government agencies could be closed for lack of financing.
Inside the White House there seemed to be an increased sense of urgency. Administration officials have spent weeks resisting the idea that they are actively preparing for a shutdown, and have said only that federal agencies are updating their existing plans. But on Monday, some officials said privately that the pace of preparations was accelerating — even as Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, pushed back against the idea that the administration is bracing for the budget talks to fail.
“There is nothing unusual that this government, this administration is doing with regards to the situation we are in now,” Mr. Carney told reporters, “so I would not say bracing for, because we at the White House and the president believes that there is room — ample room for compromise.”
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