[h=3]By JANET HOOK And PETER NICHOLAS[/h]Already looking past the current budget impasse gripping the capital, congressional leaders are quietly considering a deal to avert a government shutdown next month—but at the cost of prolonging across-the-board spending cuts.
Attention is beginning to shift from Friday, when the broad cuts known as the sequester kick in, to the next budget deadline: Congress must pass a so-called continuing resolution by the end of March to keep funding government operations.
Senior aides to House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) have begun discussing a bill being prepared by House Republicans to fund government operations through September. Republicans want the bill to extend operating funds at the lower levels set to kick in Friday and to give more flexibility to the Pentagon to manage its cuts.
Associated PressSpeaker John Boehner and Senate counterpart Harry Reid have begun discussions on a deal to keep the government operating.
The current funding bill expires March 27, and without an extension or replacement, a partial government shutdown would ensue.
A White House official said the administration wouldn't go along with such a plan to extend the lower spending levels. And Democrats are insisting that the House GOP bill also give new latitude to domestic agencies as well as the Pentagon.
But an aide to Senate Democratic leaders said such a measure might be politically difficult for the lawmakers to oppose, lest they bear the blame for shutting down the government.
"There's an emerging consensus that it would be a difficult battle to have," said the Senate leadership aide. "I don't think we could force a shutdown."
The House is likely to consider the continuing resolution, or CR, the week of March 4, a senior House GOP aide said. It is needed because when Congress last year hit a stalemate over the year's appropriations, they compromised by providing funding only until March 27. The government-wide bill funds programs ranging from defense to education to law enforcement.
"It appears that this CR package has the support of a majority of both House members and senators," said Jennifer Hing, GOP spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee.
That doesn't mean that Democrats would give up the fight over the sequester cuts. But they are beginning to see political risks in fighting that battle on the continuing resolution.
It isn't clear whether or how the parties might forge a compromise to replace or delay the sequester, but no such deal is likely before Friday. At issue are $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that are due to be phased in from Friday through Sept. 30 unless Congress acts.
The sequester resulted from the summer 2011 deal that raised the federal borrowing limit. The idea was that lawmakers of both parties would find the indiscriminate cuts so abhorrent they would be forced to compromise on a substitute plan to shrink the federal budget deficit by $1.2 trillion over a decade. Both Democrats and Republicans have sought to replace the cuts with a more gradual, targeted plan. President Barack Obama wants the replacement package to include tax increases as well as spending cuts; Republicans have said they won't agree to any tax increases, only spending cuts.
There was no end to the partisan standoff in sight Sunday as the White House continued its effort to highlight the potential harmful effects of the budget cuts and to blame what it sees as Republican intransigence for refusing to accept a compromise that includes tax increases.
The White House released a report detailing the effects of the cuts in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Presidential advisers, speaking in a conference call, said the cuts would mean 350 teachers and teacher aides could lose their jobs in Ohio, nearly 4,200 children in Georgia wouldn't receive vaccines, and 400 victims of domestic violence in Kentucky might not receive services.
Bloomberg NewsSenator Harry Reid
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, warned that people can expect flight delays as a result of the sequester because of furloughs at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Many Republicans dismiss such predictions even as they acknowledge that the GOP risks bearing the blame for whatever pain is felt.
"It could be that the president, having used scare tactics to describe how devastating sequester cuts would be, ends up looking alarmist and demagogic," said Peter Wehner, a White House aide under George W. Bush who is now a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. "On the flip side, if the disruptions are real and painful in people's lives, and the public places primary responsibility on Republicans for the cuts, it could hurt the GOP."
Republicans blame Mr. Obama for the sequester, arguing it was the White House's idea. The White House says that was only because Republicans insisted on deep spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011, and it notes that the deal that created the sequester passed with considerable Republican support.
"We shouldn't be passing the blame to the executive branch, or saying this is Obama's sequester," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.), speaking on "Fox News Sunday." "The Republicans supported this; I supported it. We need to come together and make the right cuts."
The partisan debate resounded through a meeting of the nation's governors in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.
"Everyone is concerned about this, and well we should be," said Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, who warned that "lives will be put in jeopardy" from cuts to military and air-transit funding.
But Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, who heads the Democratic Governors Association, joined the Obama administration in blaming the GOP. "The fact Republicans in Congress might actually do this next Friday, I am just incredulous," he said. "If we are really going to kill jobs and kill this fragile economic recovery at a critical time, there isn't a Democrat or a Republican in the country who isn't going to be outraged at this Congress."
The debate will continue this week. Mr. Obama on Tuesday will visit a shipyard in Newport News, Va., a community that would be hit by defense cuts triggered by the sequester. The day before, three Republican House members from the region will speak at a community event to spotlight the damaging impact of the impending cuts.
The Senate is expected this week to begin debate on a Democratic bill to block the sequester and replace it with tax increases on millionaires and spending cuts in farm programs.
Republicans, who oppose the bill because of its tax increases, are expected to offer an alternative. They haven't yet said what the alternative would be, but an aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said it would most likely be one that wouldn't block the spending cuts but give agency and department heads more latitude in deciding how to carry out those cuts.
However, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), on CNN's "State of the Union," bluntly rejected the idea because it gave the president too much of Congress's power over the government's purse strings. "I say to my Republican friends, if you want to just give the president flexibility as to how to enact these cuts in defense spending, then why don't we go home and just give him the money?" he said.
But many Republicans want to give the Pentagon flexibility to absorb cuts. A key part of the House GOP continuing resolution is its provisions for detailed revisions of the Pentagon budget to reflect new priorities and for more latitude to shift money among programs. Mr. Reid will insist on similar provisions for domestic agencies that oversee top Obama priorities such as health, an aide said.
Attention is beginning to shift from Friday, when the broad cuts known as the sequester kick in, to the next budget deadline: Congress must pass a so-called continuing resolution by the end of March to keep funding government operations.
Senior aides to House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) have begun discussing a bill being prepared by House Republicans to fund government operations through September. Republicans want the bill to extend operating funds at the lower levels set to kick in Friday and to give more flexibility to the Pentagon to manage its cuts.
Associated PressSpeaker John Boehner and Senate counterpart Harry Reid have begun discussions on a deal to keep the government operating.
The current funding bill expires March 27, and without an extension or replacement, a partial government shutdown would ensue.
A White House official said the administration wouldn't go along with such a plan to extend the lower spending levels. And Democrats are insisting that the House GOP bill also give new latitude to domestic agencies as well as the Pentagon.
But an aide to Senate Democratic leaders said such a measure might be politically difficult for the lawmakers to oppose, lest they bear the blame for shutting down the government.
"There's an emerging consensus that it would be a difficult battle to have," said the Senate leadership aide. "I don't think we could force a shutdown."
The House is likely to consider the continuing resolution, or CR, the week of March 4, a senior House GOP aide said. It is needed because when Congress last year hit a stalemate over the year's appropriations, they compromised by providing funding only until March 27. The government-wide bill funds programs ranging from defense to education to law enforcement.
"It appears that this CR package has the support of a majority of both House members and senators," said Jennifer Hing, GOP spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee.
That doesn't mean that Democrats would give up the fight over the sequester cuts. But they are beginning to see political risks in fighting that battle on the continuing resolution.
It isn't clear whether or how the parties might forge a compromise to replace or delay the sequester, but no such deal is likely before Friday. At issue are $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that are due to be phased in from Friday through Sept. 30 unless Congress acts.
The sequester resulted from the summer 2011 deal that raised the federal borrowing limit. The idea was that lawmakers of both parties would find the indiscriminate cuts so abhorrent they would be forced to compromise on a substitute plan to shrink the federal budget deficit by $1.2 trillion over a decade. Both Democrats and Republicans have sought to replace the cuts with a more gradual, targeted plan. President Barack Obama wants the replacement package to include tax increases as well as spending cuts; Republicans have said they won't agree to any tax increases, only spending cuts.
There was no end to the partisan standoff in sight Sunday as the White House continued its effort to highlight the potential harmful effects of the budget cuts and to blame what it sees as Republican intransigence for refusing to accept a compromise that includes tax increases.
The White House released a report detailing the effects of the cuts in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Presidential advisers, speaking in a conference call, said the cuts would mean 350 teachers and teacher aides could lose their jobs in Ohio, nearly 4,200 children in Georgia wouldn't receive vaccines, and 400 victims of domestic violence in Kentucky might not receive services.
Bloomberg NewsSenator Harry Reid
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, warned that people can expect flight delays as a result of the sequester because of furloughs at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Many Republicans dismiss such predictions even as they acknowledge that the GOP risks bearing the blame for whatever pain is felt.
"It could be that the president, having used scare tactics to describe how devastating sequester cuts would be, ends up looking alarmist and demagogic," said Peter Wehner, a White House aide under George W. Bush who is now a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. "On the flip side, if the disruptions are real and painful in people's lives, and the public places primary responsibility on Republicans for the cuts, it could hurt the GOP."
Republicans blame Mr. Obama for the sequester, arguing it was the White House's idea. The White House says that was only because Republicans insisted on deep spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011, and it notes that the deal that created the sequester passed with considerable Republican support.
"We shouldn't be passing the blame to the executive branch, or saying this is Obama's sequester," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.), speaking on "Fox News Sunday." "The Republicans supported this; I supported it. We need to come together and make the right cuts."
The partisan debate resounded through a meeting of the nation's governors in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.
"Everyone is concerned about this, and well we should be," said Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, who warned that "lives will be put in jeopardy" from cuts to military and air-transit funding.
But Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, who heads the Democratic Governors Association, joined the Obama administration in blaming the GOP. "The fact Republicans in Congress might actually do this next Friday, I am just incredulous," he said. "If we are really going to kill jobs and kill this fragile economic recovery at a critical time, there isn't a Democrat or a Republican in the country who isn't going to be outraged at this Congress."
The debate will continue this week. Mr. Obama on Tuesday will visit a shipyard in Newport News, Va., a community that would be hit by defense cuts triggered by the sequester. The day before, three Republican House members from the region will speak at a community event to spotlight the damaging impact of the impending cuts.
The Senate is expected this week to begin debate on a Democratic bill to block the sequester and replace it with tax increases on millionaires and spending cuts in farm programs.
Republicans, who oppose the bill because of its tax increases, are expected to offer an alternative. They haven't yet said what the alternative would be, but an aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said it would most likely be one that wouldn't block the spending cuts but give agency and department heads more latitude in deciding how to carry out those cuts.
However, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), on CNN's "State of the Union," bluntly rejected the idea because it gave the president too much of Congress's power over the government's purse strings. "I say to my Republican friends, if you want to just give the president flexibility as to how to enact these cuts in defense spending, then why don't we go home and just give him the money?" he said.
But many Republicans want to give the Pentagon flexibility to absorb cuts. A key part of the House GOP continuing resolution is its provisions for detailed revisions of the Pentagon budget to reflect new priorities and for more latitude to shift money among programs. Mr. Reid will insist on similar provisions for domestic agencies that oversee top Obama priorities such as health, an aide said.