WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders and top appropriators are set to meet as early as Wednesday to work through differences on a potential omnibus spending agreement, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Tuesday.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, along with a few top White House aides, met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Schumer, D-N.Y., earlier Tuesday to discuss the lame-duck agenda.
Schumer said the leaders had a “productive discussion” about funding the government, and said all four leaders aim to come together to pass an omnibus.
“We all agreed that it should be done this year, we all agreed we have to work together and everyone has to give a little bit,” he said. “We also … said we would all work toward getting an omnibus as opposed to a CR (continuing resolution).”
The prospects of a lame duck omnibus remain murky as Republicans and Democrats have not reached a topline spending agreement. The current continuing resolution runs out Dec. 16, though lawmakers have discussed a stopgap extension of perhaps a week to buy extra time.
“We each laid out our criteria for the omnibus. Obviously, they’re different,” Schumer told reporters after returning from the White House meeting. “But we’ve agreed to sit down as early as tomorrow, the four appropriators and the four leaders, to try and resolve the issue and avoid any government shutdown.”
McConnell said that while there is widespread agreement an omnibus is better than a CR, Republicans want increased defense spending and more funding for Ukraine.
“Our feeling is that the Democrats have met a number of their domestic priorities previously” through 2021’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package and this year’s budget reconciliation law, which contained roughly $450 billion in clean energy and health care-related spending, McConnell said.
“And they’re insistent on continuing to request astronomical increases on the nondefense, domestic side, is a sticking point,” McConnell said. “So that’s where we are and we’re going to keep talking to each other and hopefully work this out.”
House Republicans are willing to punt government funding into January if no agreement is reached, McCarthy said. Republicans will have a slim House majority in the next Congress.
“CRs are not where we want to be, but if we can not get our work done now, the outgoing majority, if they don’t want to work with us, we can get this work done in January as well,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy said he wants to cut discretionary spending below the fiscal 2022 enacted level, which was a little over $1.5 trillion. By contrast, House and Senate Democrats’ proposed spending bills would appropriate closer to $1.7 trillion.
Within those figures, Senate Democratic appropriators have proposed closer to the “parity” Republicans have sought between defense and nondefense programs. But even the Senate split amounts to a 9 percent boost for defense versus 12 percent for nondefense. Although the latter includes areas like homeland security and veterans medical care, Republicans still view that as an uneven allocation.
On top of that, the Biden administration wants an additional $85 billion in supplemental aid designated as emergency funding, though much of that is aid to Ukraine and disaster relief members of both parties support.
“I look at overall, they have spent trillions of dollars and put us into inflation,” McCarthy said after returning to the Capitol from the meeting. “We’ve got to get our country under control. We’ve got to get ourselves back to a balanced budget.”
McCarthy said he was aiming to prevent “runaway spending,” make America energy independent and secure the border.
“If we can’t get common sense in appropriation bills then yes, we’ll support a CR and fix this come January,” he said.
The Biden administration and top Democrats have been warning of the danger that the two parties may not be able to come together at all, however, and instead resort to a full-year stopgap bill.
The Pentagon has already laid out the consequences of such a move on that department, and the White House is preparing contingencies lawmakers will need to consider if they can’t reach agreement on the regular spending bills.
“We don’t prefer that,” Pelosi said of the prospect of a yearlong CR. “We don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Biden said he hoped that Congress would work together to fund the government, and also provide funding for COVID-19 and more aid to Ukraine.
The administration this year has made repeated requests for additional COVID-19 funding that Congress has rebuffed. Ukraine aid, on the other hand, has been more popular in Congress.
Back at the Capitol, Senate Appropriations ranking member Richard C. Shelby said he spoke to Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., on Monday night and that talks are continuing.
“Most of us want to get to ‘yes’ and get a bill. Some say let’s punt it down the road, but then you start all over,” said Shelby, an Alabama Republican retiring at the end of this year. “We ought to do our job while we’re here. I think we’ve got a good chance to do it.”
Biden also is pushing for Congress to intervene and pass legislation to adopt a tentative agreement between railroad workers and operators before the Dec. 9 deadline. The union membership has rejected that agreement over concern about a lack of paid sick days.
Top Democrats back the legislation to avert a railroad work stoppage, which a broad array of industries have said could grind the U.S. economy to a halt. McConnell agreed that legislation is needed, though McCarthy was noncommittal. The House is planning to take up legislation to avert the strike on Wednesday.
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(CQ-Roll Call's Paul M. Krawzak, Lindsey McPherson, Lauren Clason and David Lerman contributed to this report.)
