White House, GOP edge closer to a deal

The White House and congressional
Republicans edged closer to a budget deal Wednesday, as House and Senate Appropriations
staff resumed negotiations at the direction of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

A source familiar with the talks said members of the Senate and House Appropriations panels are working toward a target of $33 billion in spending cuts. The $33 billion goal splits the difference between $30 billion in cuts Senate Democrats have proposed and $36 billion in cuts Boehner suggested in talks with White House officials, according to the source. 

{mosads}The $33 billion would be close to the cuts first proposed by House GOP leaders, who moved to $61 billion in proposed cuts under pressure from freshmen in their conference. Policy language defunding the new healthcare law and Planned Parenthood, which conservatives have insisted should be in a final deal, remains a sticking point.

A Republican committee aide said the negotiations would not encompass the most controversial policy restrictions, known as riders, that the House GOP added to the budget bill it passed in February.

Michael Steel, Boehner’s spokesman, denied that a deal has been reached between GOP and Democratic leaders.

“No. There have been discussions for weeks, and those discussions are continuing. There’s no agreement, and nothing will be agreed to until everything is agreed to,” Steel said.

Still, the private talks were seen as a
sign of progress even as an acrimonious war of words between the parties
unfolded in public over a budget stalemate that could shut down the government
after April 8.

Boehner
instructed the House Appropriations Committee to begin negotiations with their
Senate-side counterparts after leadership aides to Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) met on Tuesday night. The move suggested the two sides had agreed to a top-line figure, since Republican House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (Ky.), has said consistently he would not initiate talks unless a figure had been settled on.

Rogers would not divulge that
number, but told reporters Wednesday that he hoped the negotiations would be
“fruitful.”

“I’m glad that we’re beginning to
have conversations,” he said off the House floor. “I hope they’re fruitful.
We’re going to try to make them fruitful. We don’t want a shutdown, so we’ll do
the best we know how.”

Rogers cautioned that the details
would not be worked out overnight.

“We’ve got to go through the entire
federal budget covered by H.R. 1,” he said, referring to the spending bill the
House GOP passed in February that would cut $61 billion over the final seven
months of the fiscal year. “It’s going to take some time,” Rogers said.

In the Senate, Vice President Joe
Biden and Budget Director Jack Lew met with Democrats at the
Capitol Wednesday evening.

The resumption of negotiations came
amid a broad Republican bid to cement party unity heading into the decisive
final week before the budget deadline. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor
(R-Va.) announced Wednesday morning that Republicans would take up a bill on
Friday aimed at prodding the Senate to pass a long-term spending bill, which it
has not done in the 40 days since the House approved its proposal. The new
legislation decrees that, absent Senate passage of a budget bill by the April 8
deadline, the measure approved by the House in February would become “the law
of the land.”

The move appeared to be purely
symbolic, because like the previous Republican bill, it would have to win approval
from a Democratic Senate and White House that have already rejected it.

Republicans described their plan,
dubbed the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, as giving Democrats one last
chance to keep the government running amid budget talks that are at impasse.

“We are serious,” Cantor told
reporters after GOP leaders informed their conference of the plan on Wednesday
morning. “We want to take care of this problem so we can get on with the
business of this nation and get Americans back to work.”

He said the bill the House plans to
consider would also prevent members of Congress from being paid in the event of
a shutdown. The Senate has already approved such language.

“It shows we are united. It shows
we are serious,” House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. He
acknowledged the bill was designed to “prod the Senate” to act.

The plan was quickly derided by
both Democrats and Senate Republicans, however, who responded by offering a
civics lesson to their House colleagues.

“My reaction to that is ultimately
the whole body including the executive branch has to sign on here or we’re just
whistling in the wind,” Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)
said: “To be the law of the land, a bill has to pass the Senate and be signed
by the president.”

Hours after the Cantor
announcement, a House GOP Appropriations subcommittee chairman, Rep. Mike
Simpson (R-Idaho), said he hadn’t heard about it. Told of the plan, he laughed
and said: “If we can do that, can’t we just deem the budget balanced?”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.) mocked the proposal, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the top
Democrat on the Budget Committee, called it “a political stunt.”

Yet the House GOP proposal won
praise from several members of the party’s rank-and-file, including freshmen members
whom Boehner and Cantor will need to back any budget deal with Democrats.
Lawmakers said it would help to unify the occasionally fractious GOP conference
by putting the onus back on the Senate to act on a spending plan.

“It absolutely is productive,”
freshman Rep. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) said, claiming the measure would “reaffirm
exactly what our position is.”

Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), who
has criticized the scope of GOP spending cuts, said voting again for the House
plan “shows my constituents that we’re doing something.”

In another sign that freshmen were
on board with the leadership message, a group of 30 first-term Republicans
released a letter to Reid blaming him for the budget impasse.

“Mr. Reid, your record on spending
in the Senate is one of failure. You have failed to pass a budget, failed to
restrain spending and failed to put our country on sound fiscal footing,” the
first-term members, led by Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), wrote in the letter delivered
on Wednesday. “We do not accept your failure as our own.”

The missive called on the Senate to
pass a long-term spending bill funding the government for the rest of the year.
“Make no mistake: Any government shutdown is the result of your lack of
leadership,” the lawmakers wrote.

A spokesman for Reid, Jon Summers,
replied: “When Republicans are done with their juvenile stunts, Senator Reid
will be waiting at the negotiating table, ready to work out a responsible,
bipartisan solution that cuts billions in government spending while protecting
jobs and avoiding a dangerous shutdown that would delay Social Security checks
and veterans’ benefits.”

Erik Wasson, Alexander Bolton
and Jordan Fabian contributed reporting.

This story was posted at 3:54 p.m. and last updated at 7:05 p.m.