Senate GOP Prepares Stopgap Funding Measure to Avert Shutdown

(Bloomberg) -- Senate Republicans are preparing a measure to avoid a partial U.S. government shutdown and delay a fight over President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall by extending current spending until early February.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby of Alabama said Tuesday night he’s coordinating with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who will decide if and when to seek a vote. Shelby said he began work on the bill after concluding that a long-term resolution probably wouldn’t be found before a shutdown would begin on Friday night.

Earlier in the day, the Trump administration signaled a retreat from a confrontation over the president’s demand for $5 billion in wall money, and Democrats rejected a GOP plan to shift other government funds to the president’s immigration priorities.

But it’s uncertain whether Trump would agree to short-term spending even if Congress passed it. Earlier Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders urged the Senate to pass “something,” and said the White House would decide its next step after that.

On Twitter Tuesday night, the president seemed to back down on his demand for a fortified concrete wall. He said Democrats don’t want a concrete wall, "but we are not building a Concrete Wall, we are building artistically designed steel slats, so that you can easily see through it." He said it would "give our Country the security that our citizens deserve."

The window for a larger year-end deal resolving the standoff is closing, although talks between Senate leaders in both parties haven’t halted altogether, a person familiar with the talks said Tuesday night. Nine of 15 government departments would shut down after Friday if Congress doesn’t provide new funds. Others, including the Defense Department, have already been financed through next September.

McConnell of Kentucky said earlier Tuesday that all sides want to avoid a shutdown, and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said his party would seriously consider a short-term spending bill into early next year.

Trump said earlier at the White House that it was “too early to say” whether a shutdown can be avoided. Shelby said he believes the president would sign a short-term spending bill, but he didn’t have any direct assurances that Trump will do so.

Schumer rejected a Republican proposal to move about $1 billion into what he called “a slush fund” for the president’s immigration priorities. “Let me be clear: the Republican offer would not clear either chamber,” he said.

The fuller battle over the wall funding may become more difficult early next year with Democrats in control of the House. Trump said last week he would be “proud” to shut the government if it will force Democrats to provide the $5 billion he’s seeking for the wall.

Sanders said Tuesday the administration was looking into whether funds from various agencies could be used to fund a wall, though it was unclear whether the administration had authority to do it.

“We are looking at existing funding through other agencies right now that we can draw on to do that immediately,” she said at a briefing. She also repeated Trump’s unexplained assertion that additional revenue resulting from the revamped trade deal with Mexico and Canada would provide more than enough revenue to pay for the wall.

Democratic leaders this month offered Trump $1.3 billion for border fencing after earlier this year backing $1.6 billion. McConnell of Kentucky on Tuesday proposed to Schumer a plan that would provide $1.6 billion for border security in addition to $1 billion for Trump’s immigration priorities. The additional funding couldn’t be used for a wall, according to a person familiar with the matter.

John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, called Sanders’s remarks “a hopeful sign” that a partial shutdown could be avoided before government funding expires for nine government departments and various independent agencies.

Trump has previously suggested he might turn to the military to build a wall on the southern U.S. border. When Sanders was asked during an interview on Fox News Channel Tuesday morning whether the administration would seek to use defense funds, she didn’t rule it out.

“There are certainly a number of different funding sources that we’ve identified that we can use, that we can couple with the money that would be given through congressional appropriations that would help us get to that $5 billion that the president needs in order to protect our border,” she said.

Cornyn said it was unclear what authority could be used to shift money to border security from other government accounts.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California objected. “The wall isn’t about money,” she said. “The wall is about morality. It’s the wrong thing to do. It doesn’t work. It’s not effective.”

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