US budget: Wrangling goes on as shutdown deadline looms
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President Barack Obama: "I'm not prepared to express wild optimism"
Last minute talks are underway between congressional negotiators over US federal spending cuts as a deadline to avoid a government shutdown looms.
Top Democratic leader Harry Reid said both sides had agreed to $38bn (£23bn) in spending cuts but were unable to agree on federal funding for abortion.President Barack Obama spoke to Mr Reid and senior Republican John Boehner on Friday, the White House said.
Without a new budget, the US government will shut down at midnight on Friday.
"The only issue left was women's health," Mr Reid said on Friday, referring to funding for Planned Parenthood, a family health group which is also the largest abortion provider in the US.
He added: "This has been a moving target but now we've come to realize that the moving target is now focused on a bull's eye on women in America."
Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker John Boehner told reporters he hoped the president would sign a stop-gap measure which would fund US troops until the end of the year, calling it the "responsible thing to do".
The bill would also fund the federal government for one additional week.
The BBC's North America editor Mark Mardell says Mr Boehner's statement must have been the shortest statement ever from a political leader on the brink of a crisis, adding that he did not look like a man who was winning the argument with his own party.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Mr Obama spoke separately to Mr Boehner and Mr Reid on Friday morning.
"Discussions between the leaders and the White House aimed at reaching a budget agreement are continuing," Mr Carney said in a statement.
Government closure If a government shutdown occurs, some 800,000 government employees would be barred from working and would not be paid, government lending would cease and national parks and other government-run sites would close.
The US military would continue to operate but troops would not be paid until the deadlock was broken.
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Mark Mardell BBC North America editorEven if a breakdown is averted today, there are many more moments yet to come over budget, debt and deficit - late night crisis meetings at the White House may become a fixture”
The last US government shutdown came in 1995, amid a dispute between the Republican Congress and Bill Clinton's White House.
That shutdown lasted for 20 days and was estimated to have shaved a full percentage point off US economic growth for one quarter of the year.This time around, talks have been stalled for days as Republicans - urged on by the fiscally conservative Tea Party movement - push for larger budget cuts than Democrats are willing to concede.
Mr Obama held two sessions of talks on Thursday with the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, and the Democratic Senate majority leader, Harry Reid.
The president spoke after the second session ended without an agreement.
"I'm not yet prepared to express wild optimism but I think we are further along today than yesterday," he said.
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Government shutdowns
- US government shut down 10 times during the Carter and Reagan administrations
- Last shutdown was in 1995 under President Bill Clinton
- Law passed in 1870 prohibits government from operating if a budget hasn't been passed
- This is interpreted to exempt so-called essential services
- These include: National security, air traffic control, some but not all medical services
- But not: Processing of visas and passports, museums and monuments, answering work e-mails (by non-essential workers)
Republicans in the US House have pushed for $61bn (£37.4bn) in cuts between now and the end of the fiscal year on 30 September, and have sought to use the budget bill to dismantle Democratic policy priorities.
The Democrats have accepted cuts of more than $33bn (£20bn) from last year's levels but say the size of the cuts Republicans demand would hinder the nascent US economic recovery.A leading House Democrat, Steny Hoyer, said on Friday that lawmakers had come "70% of the way on the numbers" but were still fighting over social policies - such as on abortions and the environment - attached to the legislation.
"I think we're very close. We have come 70% of the way in terms of dollars. That's a long way to go in terms of trying to reach compromise," he said.
'No certainty' Looking tired, Mr Obama spoke late on Thursday after leaving the cross-party meeting, which also included Vice-President Joe Biden.
"My hope is that I'll be able to announce to the American people some time relatively early in the day that a shutdown has been averted, that a deal has been completed," he said.
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Rajini Vaidyanathan looks at what services might be cut if there is a partial government shutdown
The US government has subsisted without a long-term budget since 1 October, funded by a series of temporary measures.
The most recent of those is set to expire at midnight on Friday, forcing all government services deemed non-essential to shut down and keeping hundreds of thousands of government workers at home.
Republicans in the House approved the temporary stop-gap measure on Thursday, which would cut $12bn from spending in a single week.
Mr Obama said in a statement that the US government could not continue to operate on a week-to-week basis and that he would veto the Republican bill if it arrived on his desk.
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