Spending Dispute Leaves a Senate Deal Elusive
WASHINGTON — With a possible default on government obligations just days away, Senate Democratic leaders — believing they have a political advantage in the continuing fiscal impasse — refused Sunday to sign on to any deal that reopens the government but locks in budget cuts for next year.
The disagreement extended the stalemate that has kept much of the government shuttered for two weeks and threatens to force a federal default.
The core of the dispute is about spending, and how long a stopgap measure that would reopen the government should last. Democrats want the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration to last only through mid-November; Republicans want them to last as long as possible.
The Democrats’ demand shows a newfound aggressiveness. Previously, they had favored a so-called clean bill that would reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling without any policy changes attached. With Republicans on the defensive, it remains unclear whether the Democrats are using a negotiating ploy to raise the likelihood that any final deal will include their priorities as well as the Republicans’.
Democrats said Sunday that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader — who spoke only briefly by telephone — were inching forward, and that a breakthrough was possible before the debt default deadline on Thursday.
“They had a good conversation,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat, said on Sunday evening.
“They are moving closer together, and I’m hopeful the Senate can save the day.”
Republicans accused Democrats of accepting nothing short of capitulation without offering anything in return. “The Democrats keep moving the goal posts,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the lead Republican negotiators. “Decisions within the Democratic conference are constantly changing.”
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, warned on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” that the Democrats “better understand something.”
“What goes around comes around,” he said, “and if they try to humiliate Republicans, things change in American politics.”
A rally on the National Mall, led by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, was intended to show that Tea Party activists — supporters of the House Republicans who forced the shutdown over their opposition to the new health care law — were in no mood to give in. Some waved Confederate flags and called for President Obama to be impeached.
The dispute may involve debt ceiling technicalities, but at the core of the fight is a more fundamental question: with polls showing that Republicans are carrying the brunt of the blame for the shutdown, can Democrats demand total surrender, or should they offer concessions to complete the deal?
“You can’t just demand pure capitulation,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma. “Negotiations don’t work that way.”
Republicans once said that they would finance the government only if the president’s health care law was gutted. A bipartisan Senate framework drafted by Ms. Collins and Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, started with a face-saving move for Republicans of a repeal of a tax on medical devices that helps pay for the Affordable Care Act. When Senate Democratic leaders objected, that was tempered to a two-year delay of the tax.
Republicans had also insisted on tightening income verification rules for the health care law’s subsidized insurance exchanges. Now Democrats are rewriting that language as well.
“What am I getting?” Ms. Collins said. “I’m serious. I’ve bent over backward.”
Democrats have agreed to engage in formal budget negotiations — where, they acknowledge, Republicans may have the upper hand once the government is reopened and the threat of default is lifted. Both sides say they want a deal that reduces the deficit over the long term.
Republicans have one advantage: if no deal is reached during those talks, the next round of automatic cuts, even deeper than the first, go into force on Jan. 1.
“We know that come 10 years from now, Medicare is not sustainable financially,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, said on the NBC News program “Meet the Press.” “We’ve got to do something.”
“And I have to say to the Republican side, ‘For goodness’s sakes, we cannot find some savings, closing some loopholes, quote, raising revenue?’ Well, of course we can,” he said.
The Collins plan would maintain sequestration-level spending through Jan. 15, when formal budget negotiators would be required to complete a House-Senate agreement on spending and taxation over the next decade. That date was already a concession. Ms. Collins, along with Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both Republicans, initially wanted to finance the government for six months at those levels. The initial proposal by Ms. Collins would also have extended the debt ceiling only to Nov. 15, but at the request of Senate Democratic leaders, she and Mr. McConnell pushed it back to Jan. 31.
Mr. McConnell formally endorsed the Collins proposal on Sunday.
“It would reopen the government, prevent a default, provide the opportunity for additional budget negotiations around Washington’s long-term debt, and maintain the commitment that Congress made to reduce Washington spending,” he said in a statement. “It’s time for Democrat leaders to take ‘yes’ for an answer.”
But Democratic leaders have balked, and they flexed their muscle Sunday with a group of Democratic and independent senators negotiating with Ms. Collins.
Ms. Collins said eight Democrats were now involved in negotiations, including Mr. Manchin, and Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with the Democrats.
“The Democratic leadership is clearly very strong and has a lot of sway over its members,” Ms. Collins said.
Underscoring those concerns, six of the senators negotiating with Ms. Collins — Mr. Manchin, Mr. King, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana — released a joint statement acknowledging involvement in the talks but saying they could not support the proposal “in its current form.”
“There are negotiations,” they said, “but there is no agreement.”
