WASHINGTON \u2014 President Joe Biden plans to meet with the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday after weekend negotiations on the first batch of spending bills due Friday to avert a partial government shutdown appeared to stall out.<\/p>\n
Each side blamed the other Sunday night for the lack of progress on the four appropriations bills that have a March 1 deadline \u2014 Agriculture, Energy-Water, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD. Those bills represent around 20 percent of federal agencies\u2019 fiscal 2024 discretionary funds, and while a short shutdown wouldn\u2019t be debilitating, some key activities would cease, like loans to farmers and hiring and training new air traffic controllers.<\/p>\n
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote<\/a> to colleagues that he had hoped to announce a deal on Sunday night, but that Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans have been unwilling to compromise.<\/p>\n \u201c(I)t is clear now that House Republicans need more time to sort themselves out,\u201d Schumer wrote. \u201cIt is my sincere hope that in the face of a disruptive shutdown that would hurt our economy and make American families less safe, Speaker Johnson will step up to once again buck the extremists in his caucus and do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n For his part, Johnson, R-La., called Schumer\u2019s missive \u201ccounterproductive\u201d and said it fails to acknowledge \u201cgood faith\u201d attempts to reach an agreement. He blamed the current impasse on late-stage Democratic demands in the talks \u201cthat were not previously included in the Senate bills,\u201d including new spending \u201cpriorities that are farther left than what their chamber agreed upon.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t immediately clear what last-minute issues Democrats have raised.<\/p>\n One issue that Democrats have been pushing for months is extra funding for USDA\u2019s Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children.<\/p>\n The Biden administration estimates<\/a> a $1 billion boost above the fiscal 2023 level is needed to prevent states from needing to make \u201cdifficult, untenable decisions about how to manage the program,\u201d including putting eligible beneficiaries on waiting lists. The House Agriculture bill would flat-fund the program at the prior year\u2019s level; Senate appropriators found room for a $300 million increase in their bill, but that still wouldn\u2019t be enough to cover the WIC shortfall.<\/p>\n And the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues<\/a> that even the more generous Senate version of the Transportation-HUD bill falls nearly $1 billion short of what\u2019s needed to maintain low-income rental housing subsidies for about 80,000 families.<\/p>\n In his response to Schumer, Johnson also threw in another plug for stepped-up border security, which has been among the chief holdups to a deal on supplemental funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other purposes. The Senate-passed $95 billion package has hit a wall in the House, though a bipartisan group is trying to get military aid unstuck with a slimmer $66 billion version. Tuesday\u2019s White House meeting will touch on the stalled emergency supplemental as well.<\/p>\n