House Republican Leaders Working On Short-Term Spending Bill
WASHINGTON (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A possible government shutdown is looming Friday if no budget deal is made in Washington.
House Republican leadership proposed a short-term government funding bill Tuesday night, but it does not include Democrats' demand to protect immigrants brought here illegally when they were children.
The latest proposal would be a short-term deal that would fund the government until Feb. 16. As a sweetener for Democrats, it would reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, for another six years.
For conservatives, it would delay three Affordable Care Act taxes.
"Good faith negotiations are underway and to push that aside and try and jeopardize funding for things like S-CHIP and our military, to me, makes no sense," said House Speaker Paul Ryan.
But the latest proposal is running into some roadblocks. The conservative House Freedom Caucus says its members oppose the plan because it doesn't expand military spending that leaves the bill short of the 218 Republican votes necessary to pass it.
At least some Democrats say they will not vote for any bill that doesn't also include a fix for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, from being deported.
"For the Dreamers who are losing their protective status every day, there needs to be a solution now, not kicking the can down the road yet again," said Democratic Conn. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. "That's why I will oppose it."
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus introduced a separate bill that fixes DACA while increasing border security.
"This bill is the product of input from both Democrats and Republicans in the sincere desire to solve this issue," said Democratic California Rep. Pete Aguilar. "The president said to bring him a bill and he'll sign it. This is that bill."
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly met with the group Wednesday morning.
The White House has said that in exchange for signing off on a fix for DACA, it wants Congress to spend at least $18 billion on a new wall along the Mexican border this year.
Meanwhile, outgoing Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona denounced President Donald Trump's use of the terms "fake news'' and "enemy of the people'' to describe the news media and stories he doesn't like.
In a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, Flake said Trump's attacks were reminiscent of words infamously used by Russian dictator Josef Stalin to describe his enemies.
Flake has said he is not comparing Trump to Stalin, who was responsible for the deaths of millions, but said Trump's use of a term favored by Stalin, "enemy of the people," is chilling.
He called Trump's repeated attacks on the media "shameful'' and "repulsive'' and said Trump "has it precisely backward.''
The White House had no immediate comment.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
