Shutdown Fight Looms as Trump Meets With Democrats on Wall Costs

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump will meet Tuesday with the top two Democrats in Congress for the first time in a year to seek a deal over a southern border wall to avert a government shutdown. Their last meeting didn’t go so well.

The three -- Trump, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- have until Dec. 21 to resolve their differences over how much to spend on the wall, or trigger a partial government closure.

When the leaders met in December 2017, they couldn’t work out a spending agreement and the government shut down a month later.

Trump has been threatening a shutdown for months over his demand to fully fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border that he’s been seeking since the 2016 presidential campaign. He wants far more money than Democrats and even some Republicans have been willing to give him. Although Republicans control both chambers, Trump needs Democratic support in the Senate to get the 60 votes needed to advance the spending bill.

Changing Politics

The president enters Tuesday’s meeting in a shifting political environment. Democrats won control of the House in the Nov. 6 elections, and Pelosi is in line to become speaker in January. If there’s not a spending deal this time around, fewer government agencies would close because Congress has already fully funded most of the government through the rest of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2019.

“Our country cannot afford a Trump Shutdown, especially at this time of economic uncertainty," Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement late Monday. "The president knows full well that his wall proposal does not have the votes to pass the House and Senate, and should not be an obstacle to a bipartisan agreement.”

Schumer and Pelosi will make two offers to Trump that would keep funding for border fencing -- not the concrete wall Trump wants -- at the current level of $1.375 billion, according to a senior Democratic House aide. The first offer would update spending levels for every unfunded agency except Homeland Security, the source of wall funding, which would be kept at current levels. Their second plan would hold all unfunded agencies at their current funding level through Sept. 30.

Earlier this year Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed to $1.6 billion in border fencing, and that still could be where all sides end up.

“The offer we have on the table is very reasonable. Hopefully we can dispense with the theatrics and get this done,” said Senator Jon Tester of Montana, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security spending panel.

Democrats say that if Trump rejects those options, it will be clear he’s to blame for a shutdown.

Risk of Impasse

Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, said he didn’t know of any new offer being prepared by the White House and that if there is no deal at the meeting it will mean the sides are at an “impasse.”

“My advice is to work toward yes and fund the government and do our job,” Shelby said.

For his part, Trump is standing firm over his wall demands and has ramped up attacks on Democrats.

"Arizona, together with our Military and Border Patrol, is bracing for a massive surge at a NON-WALLED area. WE WILL NOT LET THEM THROUGH. Big danger. Nancy and Chuck must approve Boarder Security and the Wall!," he tweeted Thursday.

Congressional aides say that given the hardening positions, a brief shutdown into January is the most likely outcome.

Limited Impact

Only 25 percent of the government’s $1.2 trillion operating budget is yet to be funded, so the effects of a shutdown would be limited.

Among those facing a partial shutdown are the Homeland Security Department, though many of the agency’s law enforcement agents would remain on the job because they’re considered essential. National parks would remain open but most employees who maintain them would be sent home. The Securities and Exchange Commission would halt new investigations except where needed “for the protection of property.” The Defense Department is funded and would operate normally.

Congress could seek to temporarily avoid a shutdown by passing a temporary spending measure into the new year, postponing the fight until Democrats take charge of the House.

A year ago, Schumer of New York and Pelosi of California made the short trip from Capitol Hill to the Oval Office in the hopes of striking a deal on budget caps to avert a looming shutdown.

The meeting had been rescheduled from a week earlier when Democrats boycotted a meeting because Trump tweeted just before its start that no deal was possible. Trump held the meeting with empty chairs.

After failing to come to an agreement, Congress punted decisions into January. Schumer and Trump met alone on Jan. 19 to work out a combined immigration and border wall deal, which collapsed after Trump backed away. Schumer, under pressure from liberals in his party, precipitated a shutdown by refusing to back another stopgap spending measure. He relented days later.

Deal Signed

Trump ultimately signed a trillion-dollar spending bill with the domestic increases Democrats wanted and without border wall funds.

A year later, the scars of the last Trump meetings with Democrats linger, eroding trust among the leaders.

Democrats said they see little chance of a deal in which Trump would agree to the tradeoff Schumer offered in January -- protecting young undocumented immigrants from deportation in exchange for border wall money.

Trump turned against that deal after conservatives urged him to seek limits on legal immigrants, including the end of a diversity visa lottery and some types of family reunification visas.

"We called that the ‘president take yes for an answer deal’ and the president poured cold water all over it," said Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat.

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.