Not wanting to risk bipartisanship in a fraught situation like the present, Ryan crafted a short-term stopgap spending bill created to pass with only Republican votes in the House, because (a) it did not include any DACA deal, which was very hard to design in any event, and (b) it had some sweeteners for conservatives, including delays in two Obamacare taxes.
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House Republicans appeared to grudgingly accept the prospect of a fourth short-term spending bill to keep the government open past Friday, raising doubts about Democrats’ ability to protect those brought illegally to the United States as children before the end of the week. Meadows said Tuesday night that the House Freedom Caucus either wanted to see a one-year defense funding bill attached to the short-term continuing resolution – a nonstarter when the caucus pushed for it in December – or wanted to see Republican leaders include more funding of defense anomalies.
Now with a January 19 deadline looming for continuing to fund the government, conservatives say they can’t support any spending bill that paves the way for a future immigration deal that could favor Democrats.
Democrats have signaled all along that they wouldn’t be quick to fund the government without assurances that there was a plan on the way to protect hundreds of thousands of young recipients of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which expires in March.
Senator Dick Durbin, who’s been trying to pull together a bipartisan deal on immigration, said New York’s Charles Schumer, the party’s Senate leader, isn’t forcing Democrats in the chamber to take a stand that would shut down the government.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Wednesday morning that Republican leaders hadn’t taken the temperature of their members, but he was hoping both parties would support the stopgap bill.
At this point, it’s unclear if GOP leaders will have the votes for a CR.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he is hesitant to bring a bill to the floor of the Senate if he is not sure Trump will sign it.
The short-term stopgap would most likely be written to extend current spending levels until February 16, giving lawmakers a month to reach a deal to raise discretionary spending caps and potentially write a fiscal 2018 omnibus spending bill ahead of the next congressional recess.
“I think cool heads hopefully will prevail on this”.
For example, it is becoming tiresome that Republicans, as a party, are being taken to task every time the president utters an expletive (most recently related to us immigration policy) or fires off a tweet that rankles liberals.
At least some Democratic votes are needed to pass the budget measure ahead of Friday’s deadline.
It seems certain that no immigration accord will be reached this week, in time to affect the outcome on the vote on the separate bill preventing a federal shutdown.
Separately, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other Democrats met privately in the Capitol with White House chief of staff John Kelly, and some emerged citing little progress.
“For the Dreamers who are losing their protective status every day, there needs to be a solution now, not kicking the can down the road yet again”, said Democratic Conn. Sen. But House conservatives insist they have the votes to reject the plan. “I urge my Democratic friends to honor their stated commitments and join in a bipartisan effort to keep the government funded and reauthorize S-CHIP for struggling families across America”.
“Personally I’d do just about anything to fix this problem, including vote for things that I might not support otherwise, but I am increasingly disturbed that support for our military is being tied to some other issue, some other agenda”, Thornberry said.
Emerging from a conference meeting of Republican senators Wednesday, Sen.
“We don’t have the majority; they have the majority”, he said. After Trump’s incendiary language and his rejection of the bipartisan deal last week, Democrats may be leaning more toward withholding their votes on a spending compromise.
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“None of us like to be in this position”, Simpson said, adding that he plans to vote for the bill and expects it to have enough Republican support to pass the House.
