WASHINGTON - On a gloomy day in the nation's capital, there are some tentative signs of progress over the government's dire fiscal problems. The House voted 267-151 Wednesday to set aside $984 billion to fund the government for the final six months of the 2013 fiscal year. The agreement also gives the Defense Department and Veterans Administration flexibility to...
WASHINGTON - On a gloomy day in the nation's capital, there are some tentative signs of progress over the government's dire fiscal problems. The House voted 267-151 Wednesday to set aside $984 billion to fund the government for the final six months of the 2013 fiscal year. The agreement also gives the Defense Department and Veterans Administration flexibility to trim their share of $85 billion in sequester cuts that took effect March 1.
On a gloomy day in the nation's capital, there are some tentative signs of progress over the government's dire fiscal problems.
If the Senate follows the lead of the House, it would avert a government shutdown later this month, said Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
Voting for the House bill were 214 Republicans, including all five from Louisiana and 53 Democrats. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, was among the 137 House Democrats to vote no. Some Democrats said the bill fell short of agreed-upon spending levels for some domestic programs.
The vote came on a day federal government offices closed in what was expected to be a big snow storm. But instead the storm turned into a nasty mix of rain and snow that failed to deliver the five to 10 inches of snow forecast.
Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., backed the six-month spending bill, praising a provision to allow the Pentagon to select lower-priority items for sequester cuts, instead of the across-the-board reductions established by sequester.
"It allows the DOD to set smarter priorities, rather than across-the-board cuts," Scalise said.
Democrats wanted to give other federal agencies the same discretion to implement sequester cuts, but Republicans refused. "There was just no consensus on that," Scalise said.
President Barack Obama said he will likely sign the spending plan into law if it reflects previous spending agreements he negotiated with congressional leaders. Scalise said, "It locks in the spending cuts we negotiated."
But some Democrats said that the bill simply continues previous funding levels for agencies, with some reductions, thereby failing to keep pace with the new challenges facing agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. For instance, Democrats said the bill doesn't include a requested loan guarantee program for Jordon, which is facing huge costs in housing hundreds of thousands of refugees escaping the bloody civil war in Syria.
The legislation provides funds, however, for the Obama administration to proceed with the Affordable Care Act, something that was agreed to in earlier White House-congressional negotiations.
Adding to momentum after years of gridlock is word for the first time in months that Obama and Republican members of Congress are talking to each other. The president made calls to several GOP senators over the weekend.
And Wednesday night the president dined with 12 Republican senators at a Washington hotel. Among the participants were 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter wasn't on the guest list.
"Most of the meeting was spent on budget and the way forward and his goal is ours," said Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb, one of the GOP senators at the dinner. "We want to stop careening from crisis to crisis and solving every problem by meeting the crisis deadline."
Next week, Obama plans to meet with the entire Senate and House GOP caucuses in separate meetings.
But there's still no consensus. White House officials say any plan to replace the sequester and further reduce the long-term federal deficit must include some revenue obtained by ending special tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations. But many Republicans say that's a non-starter; that they're through raising taxes after allowing Bush-era tax cuts to end for households with incomes of more than $450,000.
"He already got his tax increases," said Scalise, who leads the large and influential House conservative caucus. "What we've said is that we want tax reform that creates jobs and grows the economy. We're tired of losing jobs to China and other countries."
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said Republicans have to move away from their opposition to any new revenue.
"I am committed to a balanced solution to our fiscal problems that provides the stability our local officials and businesses need to plan long term," Landrieu said. "This must include a mix of smart spending cuts and additional revenues -- we cannot adequately reduce our debt and deficit with cuts alone."
At a news conference last week, the president said he would be meeting more in the future with Republicans he believes are willing to work together on budgetary issues.
"It's a silent
group right now, and we want to make sure that their voices start getting
heard," Obama said. "In the coming days and in the coming weeks I'm
going to keep on reaching out to them, both individually and as groups of
senators or members of the House, and say to them, let's fix this -- not just
for a month or two, but for years to come."