Just 10 days earlier than one other authorities shutdown, Congress eyes Ukraine, Israel and border safety

WASHINGTON — Ten days earlier than a possible authorities shutdown, Congress isn’t any nearer to resolving the standoff and is even complicating the difficulty with Republican calls for for border safety modifications as a situation for additional assist for Ukraine in its battle in opposition to Russia.

New House Speaker Mike Johnson stated Tuesday that Republicans don’t need to shut issues down, however he’s nicely conscious that his predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was ousted as speaker after compromising with Democrats in September to maintain federal workplaces open.

“We certainly want to avoid a government shutdown,” Johnson stated at a information convention alongside households with family members kidnapped within the Israel-Hamas battle.

“It’s a dangerous time around the world right now,” he stated. “We recognize that, and we’re doing our job.”

Johnson is dealing with one among his most tough assessments but, simply two weeks on the job he gained after McCarthy‘s ouster. Rather than lead the House Republicans into a strategy, the Louisiana Republican appears to be crowd-sourcing a way out of the government funding dilemma with his GOP colleagues.

At a closed-door meeting Tuesday, House Republicans discussed stopgap measures including a new idea gaining traction, a “laddered” approach, which would fund parts of the government until early December and the rest until mid-January.

Another proposal would simply extend all government funding until mid-January, according to those Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

The Senate, meanwhile, which is controlled by Democrats, has been working to devise a more comprehensive spending plan that would fund the government at current levels while also considering President Joe Biden’s almost $106 billion request for supplemental cash for Ukraine, Israel, the Asia-Pacific area and border safety.

“None of this will be easy to do, none of this ” stated Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

“The outcome of the next two weeks will hang on the same thing I’ve emphasized all year – bipartisan cooperation,” he stated.

Congress is on this budget-shutdown loop as a result of the House and Senate have failed, as they typically do, to cross the dozen particular person payments wanted to fund the varied businesses within the federal authorities. When the brand new funding 12 months started Oct. 1, lawmakers agreed to approve stopgap funding on the present ranges till Nov. 17, to permit time to complete up the work.

To complicate issues this time, Republicans are refusing Biden’s request to assist Ukraine in battling Russia until the president agrees to their calls for to beef up safety alongside the U.S. border with Mexico.

Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell stated he spoke Monday with Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and “made it clear to both of them: We have to have a credible solution” to the border.

McConnell stated he’s aligned with Biden’s extra “comprehensive approach” to funding Ukraine, Israel and different areas. But with the Senate slimly divided between Democrats and Republicans, he stated Tuesday: “The border needs to be a part of it, if it’s going to clear the Senate.”

Biden’s funding request seeks almost $14 billion in border funds for holding amenities, asylum officers and different wants, together with efforts to cease the movement of lethal fentanyl. But Republicans say the funding doesn’t go far sufficient, and as a substitute they’re demanding coverage modifications that might make it harder for immigrants to assert asylum on the border. They additionally need to revive constructing the border wall.

Democrats decried the Republican proposal as a return to Donald Trump-era border insurance policies. They stated that the Ukraine funds shouldn’t be held hostage as Congress tries to resolve U.S. border points which were a tough coverage drawback for years.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., stated Congress can not depart Ukraine behind because it confronts Russian President Vladimir Putin. She had blocked a Republican try Tuesday to cross the House’s Israel help invoice alone, with out different help.

“Ukraine is at a critical point in a brutal war. We must not give Putin a win and throw Ukraine to the wolves,” she stated.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., stated Ukraine‘s military could soon have “empty rifles.” He said the decisions being made now in Congress could determine whether Kyiv, the capital, remains a city in Ukraine or falls to Russia in the next year.

While Biden had requested $61 billion for Ukraine as part of his package, Republican support is waning. Some Republicans are eying a smaller amount that focuses on military hardware rather than funding for humanitarian and government aid in Kyiv.

Unable to finish their annual government funding work in the two weeks ahead, Congress will almost certainly have no other choice than a stopgap funding bill to avoid a government shutdown.

While the House and Senate have both approved packages of bills to fund the government, they take different approaches. House Republicans are veering dramatically from the agreement Biden and McCarthy struck earlier this year to set spending levels.

Instead, the House Republicans are slashing funding for most departments except defense, while the Senate also boosts defense and has shifted some resources. Without compromise, the final products have not been sent to Biden’s desk to turn into legislation.

Johnson introduced a number of authorities funding plans to Republican lawmakers at a closed-door assembly on Tuesday morning, in accordance with lawmakers within the room.

The House’s hardline conservatives together with many within the Freedom Caucus principally favored the two-step “laddered” method as a result of it might put a decent deadline on Congress to complete up the work and negotiate with the Senate.

But senior Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee warned that it might probably take far longer than to succeed in an settlement with the Senate on spending ranges, particularly when an settlement on topline spending that Biden-McCarthy struck is not being met.

“Technically it just takes time,” stated Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican.

Lawmakers don’t count on any voting till early subsequent week. That places Congress on a decent deadline to keep away from a shutdown.

But House Republicans famous that there’s better consensus round passing a stopgap funding measure than in September, when former McCarthy failed to achieve GOP assist for a funding plan. He needed to flip to Democrats for assist to maintain the federal government open, after which confronted the vote to oust him.

The House Republicans noticed their majority management come to a standstill as they spent most of final month struggling to elect a brand new speaker earlier than selecting Johnson.

“After the last month, if we walk into a shutdown right now, we deserve what we get,” stated Rep. Kelly Armstrong, a Republican from North Dakota. “So we got to figure this out.”

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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this story.