Senate

Reid, Pelosi to meet with Obama to strategize on spending talks

by Alexander Bolton - 09/16/15 3:13 PM ET

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will meet with President Obama at the White House on Thursday to discuss their endgame on spending talks.

Pelosi has said she would like the top-line spending numbers set before Congress votes later this month on a stopgap measure to keep the government open beyond Sept. 30.

{mosads}“I’m going to the White House tomorrow with Leader Pelosi and we’ll talk to the president about this,” Reid told reporters.

Reid said spending talks later this year should not increase defense programs without also boosting nondefense accounts.

“We believe there should be certain things that are apparent. Number one, without talking about top line, bottom line — defense and nondefense should be parallel. We should treat them both the same,” he said.

“We need to get rid of these vexatious riders. Planned Parenthood is one, abortion is the other,” Reid added.

House conservatives have threatened to vote against any resolution to fund the government if it also funds Planned Parenthood.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has pledged to avoid a government shutdown, on Tuesday called this strategy an “exercise in futility.”

He argued that Planned Parenthood cannot be defunded with the stopgap because it receives the bulk of its funding through Medicaid, a mandatory entitlement program.

“We’re going to fund the government. We’re not going to shut the government down and we will do that hopefully into late fall,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

He said he would resist Democratic efforts to increase defense and nondefense funding simultaneously.

“We know our Democratic friends’ goal is to spend more on everything. As all of you know, I’ve got members who want to spend more on defense. I put myself in that group as well. We’ll enter into a classic negotiation in which we work out our differences and fund the government,” he said.

McConnell added that he is confident Republicans will not shut down the government.

“I just am,” he said, when asked how he could feel so sure.

Tags Barack Obama Harry Reid Nancy Pelosi