With a government shutdown less than 12 hours away, it has come to this: Top Democrats and Republicans both said Friday morning that key disagreements are holding up a deal on the budget.
But they can’t even agree on what they are disagreeing over.
Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said that negotiators had come very close to a budget agreement overnight. But, Reid said, the deal broke up in a dispute over funding for the group Planned Parenthood.
That organization provides abortions, but Reid said the disputed funding would be used for other women’s health services, like cancer and blood pressure screenings and cholesterol checks.
“Republicans are asking me to sacrifice my wife’s health, my daughter’s health and my nine granddaughters’ health,” Reid said. “I’m not going to be part of that. I won’t do it. As a legislator I’m very frustrated. As an American I’m appalled. As a husband, a father and a grandfather I’m personally offended.”
But House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio)--the lead Republican in the budget negotiations--quickly disputed Reid’s account. Boehner said the impasse in negotiations was not about policy. Instead, he said, negotiators cannot agree on the overall level of spending cuts in the proposed deal.
“There’s only one reason that we do not have an agreement as yet, and that issue is spending. We’re close to a resolution on the policy issues,” Boehner said in a brief appearance at the Capitol. “But I think the American people deserve to know when will the White House, and when will Senate Democrats, get serious about cutting spending?”
It was not a hopeful beginning to Capitol Hill’s day on the brink.
The two sides are fighting over a relatively small piece of the $1 trillion-plus federal budget. Reid has said that negotiators were near an agreement to cut $38 billion from current spending levels--$5 billion more in cuts than they had discussed last week.
But, if they cannot forge a pact by midnight, the entire government will run out of money and shut down.
Federal agencies have begun preparing more than 800,000 federal workers nationwide for a possible closure, letting them know whether they should show up for work on Monday morning if the government runs out of funds.
The next news might come after 1 p.m., when House Republicans emerge from a meeting in the Capitol basement. Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and other GOP leaders are expected to brief reporters after that session.
On Thursday, congressional leaders had two Oval Office sit-downs with President Obama. After the last one, staff-level negotiations stretched until 3 a.m. Friday.
“Because the machinery of the shutdown is necessarily starting to move, I expect an answer in the morning,” Obama said late Thursday. The White House then canceled Obama’s plans to travel to Indianapolis on Friday. But in the morning, the answer was: no deal.
Read more at The Washington Post.