WASHINGTON
(AP) -- Congress on Thursday passed a stopgap spending bill to prevent a
government shutdown this weekend and buy time for challenging talks on a
wide range of unfinished business on Capitol Hill. The shutdown
reprieve came as all sides issued optimistic takes on an afternoon White
House meeting between top congressional leaders and President Donald
Trump.
The
measure passed the House 235-193, mostly along party lines, and breezed
through the Senate on a sweeping 81-14 tally barely an hour later. It
would keep the government running through Dec. 22, when another, and
more difficult, shutdown problem awaits.
The bill now heads to Trump for his signature.
Topics
at the White House session included relief from a budget freeze on the
Pentagon and domestic agencies, extending a key children's health
program and aid to hurricane-slammed Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida. The
trickiest topic, and a top priority for Democrats, involves protections
for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
These
"Dreamer" immigrants are viewed sympathetically by the public and most
lawmakers but face deportation in a few months because Trump reversed
administrative protections provided to them by former President Barack
Obama.
In
back-to-back statements, both Democratic and GOP leaders declared the
meeting "productive." The White House called it "constructive."
Privately, congressional aides said little progress had been made.
"We
had a productive conversation on a wide variety of issues. Nothing
specific has been agreed to, but discussions continue," said Capitol
Hill's top Democrats, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy
Pelosi of California, ticking off a roster of Democratic priorities,
including domestic spending increases, funding for veterans and money to
battle opioid abuse, immigration and health care.
GOP
leaders said they agreed with the need to address immigration,
including the almost 1 million immigrants given protections by Obama,
many of whom have only known America as their home.
Spokesmen
for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, R-Ky., said GOP leaders "stressed the need to address border
security, interior enforcement and other parts of our broken immigration
system," adding that the tricky immigration issue "should be a separate
process and not used to hold hostage funding for our men and women in
uniform."
Negotiations
are sure to be challenging. Pelosi staked out a hard line Thursday and
insisted that any year-end deal solve the immigration issue.
Pelosi
told reporters before the meeting that "we will not leave here" without
helping the "Dreamers." Her stance was noteworthy because GOP leaders
are likely to require Democratic votes for the pre-Christmas spending
bill.
The
White House said "negotiations on immigration should be held separately
on a different track" and not slow down funding increases for the
Pentagon.
Pelosi
returned from the White House to oppose Thursday's stopgap bill.
Fourteen Democrats supported the measure, however, while 18 Republicans
opposed it.
Among
Republicans, the conservative House Freedom Caucus had resisted the
pending stopgap measure earlier in the week, fearing it would lead to a
bad deal for conservatives down the road. But on Thursday, the group's
chairman, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said the group will likely give
leaders whatever support they need to pass the legislation.
Meadows
said they'd help it pass to avoid distractions from the GOP drive to
push their treasured $1.5 trillion tax bill through Congress this month.
That measure, which mostly benefits businesses and upper-income people,
is Trump's and the GOP's top remaining priority and would be their
first major legislative triumph of the year.
But
hours before Trump was to bargain with congressional leaders at the
White House over longer-term spending decisions, Meadows said the
conservatives would oppose any agreement they feel allows excessive
federal spending.
"I
want to avoid a headline that says President Trump's administration
just passes the highest spending levels in U.S. history," Meadows told
reporters. "There will be zero support on numbers that are too high,
regardless of anybody's position on that."
He
also said Ryan promised he'd fight in coming weeks to pass a full-year
budget for the military and leave fights with Democrats over domestic
spending for later. It is unclear how that strategy would work, since
Republicans control the Senate 52-48 and will need at least eight
Democratic votes to pass any spending legislation.
The
prospects for successful White House talks were buffeted Wednesday when
the impulsive Trump blurted to reporters that a shutdown "could
happen." He blamed Democrats, saying they want "illegal immigrants
pouring into our country, bringing with them crime, tremendous amounts
of crime."
Last week, an unexpected attack by Trump on Schumer and Pelosi prompted the two to skip a bargaining session.
The
two-week spending bill also makes money available to several states
that are running out of funds for the Children's Health Insurance
Program, known as CHIP. That widely popular program provides medical
care to more than 8 million children.
The
CHIP issue is among the year-end items where negotiations have gone
positively, and aides say a long-term agreement is nearly in hand.
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