On Friday, President Biden will talk about how urgent it is to pass legislation that would extend federal funding past midnight.
As Congress quickly runs out of time to reach a consensus to avoid another partial government shutdown, President Biden will host the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday.
According to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the president will talk about the necessity of passing legislation to extend government funding past midnight on Friday in addition to his calls for billions of dollars in help for Israel and Ukraine.
“Keeping the government open is a basic, basic priority or duty of Congress,” Ms. Jean-Pierre stated. Thus, that is the desired outcome for the president. He will talk about those things.Hard-right House members are stalling the spending plan with demands that many members will not support, such as restrictions on access to abortion. Three times in the last six months, ultraconservatives have threatened to bring the government to the verge of a complete or partial shutdown in an attempt to force further spending cutbacks and conservative policy requirements into the allocation of federal funds.
As a result, in order to keep the government operating, Congress has depended on short-term, stopgap spending bills approved by a bipartisan coalition of members, delaying a longer-term deal for weeks at a time. The speaker of the House has consistently reassured his conference that House Republicans will make every effort to win further policy gains in the upcoming round of talks.
Legislators are currently working hard to attempt to come to an agreement to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, with another pair of funding deadlines looming at the end of this week and next week.
The debt ceiling agreement negotiated in May by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden stipulated that federal spending would be cut by 1 percent on April 30 in the event that Congress could not come to an agreement on government spending before then. This means that there is even more pressure to finish the assignment. Despite the fact that some conservatives who oppose spending have stated they would like that scenario not occur, senators from both parties, Democrats and Republicans, are resolved to prevent it because the cuts would specifically impact Pentagon expenditure.
The meeting on Tuesday comes after the majority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, stated on Sunday that leaders were unable to come to an agreement over the weekend because “House Republicans need more time to sort themselves out.”
Senate Democrats are allegedly “attempting at this late stage to spend on priorities that are farther left than what their chamber agreed upon,” according to Speaker Mike Johnson.
Mr. Biden will also meet with Senator Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York who serves as the minority leader in the House, in addition to Mr. Johnson and Mr. Schumer.
In an attempt to break the impasse over his additional aid package for Ukraine and Israel, which also included significant compromises on immigration policy,
Mr. Biden gathered congressional leaders at the White House last month. This month, the measure made it through the Senate, but Mr. Johnson has declined to allow the $95 billion package of foreign aid to be put to a vote in the House.
Although the government spending package and the financing for Israel and Ukraine are unrelated, Ms. Jean-Pierre stated that Mr. Biden will argue for both on Tuesday. She refused to comment on the topic Mr. Biden intended to bring up with the leaders in order to resolve the standoff.
Ms. Jean-Pierre stated, “We’ve done these types of meetings before and it has moved the ball,” in reference to the Senate vote.
“The president desires that the national security interests of the American people be prioritized and not utilized as a political football,” the spokesperson stated. “We want to see to it that it is completed.”
The first round of government financing expires at midnight on Friday, while funds for the Pentagon and the State Department will run out on March 8.
As Ukraine commemorated the second anniversary of the Russian invasion, the White House increased its pressure on Mr. Johnson in recent weeks. Mr. Biden keeps emphasizing how dangerous Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia, is to the world.
The national security advisor to Vice President Biden, Jake Sullivan, stated on Sunday that he had spoken with Speaker Johnson and that the latter had said he would like to approve funds for Ukraine but was “trying to figure out a way to do it.”
In an interview with ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Sullivan stated, “Well, this is one of those instances where one person can bend the course of history.” He also stated that if the foreign aid package were put to a vote, it would be approved with overwhelming bipartisan support.
At this crucial juncture, Mr. Sullivan stated, “it really comes down to his willingness to actually step up to the plate and discharge his responsibility.” “And the past is observing.”
