WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bill now heads to Trump for his signature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Topics at the White House session included relief from a budget freeze on the Pentagon and domestic agencies, extending a key children\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These \u201cDreamer\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In back-to-back statements, both Democratic and GOP leaders declared the meeting \u201cproductive.\u201d The White House called it \u201cconstructive.\u201d Privately, congressional aides said little progress had been made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe had a productive conversation on a wide variety of issues. Nothing specific has been agreed to, but discussions continue,\u201d said Capitol Hill\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spokesmen for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said GOP leaders \u201cstressed the need to address border security, interior enforcement and other parts of our broken immigration system,\u201d adding that the tricky immigration issue \u201cshould be a separate process and not used to hold hostage funding for our men and women in uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Negotiations are sure to be challenging. Pelosi staked out a hard line Thursday and insisted that any year-end deal solve the immigration issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pelosi told reporters before the meeting that \u201cwe will not leave here\u201d without helping the \u201cDreamers.\u201d Her stance was noteworthy because GOP leaders are likely to require Democratic votes for the pre-Christmas spending bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House said \u201cnegotiations on immigration should be held separately on a different track\u201d and not slow down funding increases for the Pentagon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pelosi returned from the White House to oppose Thursday\u2019s stopgap bill. Fourteen Democrats supported the measure, however, while 18 Republicans opposed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s chairman, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said the group will likely give leaders whatever support they need to pass the legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meadows said they\u2019d 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\u2019s and the GOP\u2019s top remaining priority and would be their first major legislative triumph of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to avoid a headline that says President Trump\u2019s administration just passes the highest spending levels in U.S. history,\u201d Meadows told reporters. \u201cThere will be zero support on numbers that are too high, regardless of anybody\u2019s position on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also said Ryan promised he\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prospects for successful White House talks were buffeted Wednesday when the impulsive Trump blurted to reporters that a shutdown \u201ccould happen.\u201d He blamed Democrats, saying they want \u201cillegal immigrants pouring into our country, bringing with them crime, tremendous amounts of crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week, an unexpected attack by Trump on Schumer and Pelosi prompted the two to skip a bargaining session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two-week spending bill also makes money available to several states that are running out of funds for the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP. That widely popular program provides medical care to more than 8 million children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shutdown reprieve came as all sides issued optimistic takes on an afternoon White House meeting between top congressional leaders and President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":38000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":65,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[65,106,31,15,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3099,2873],"class_list":["post-12989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-management","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GSK3I4MDMNDZ5PYCYUECF6T7IU","arc_canonical_url":"\/management\/budget\/2017\/12\/07\/congress-seems-set-to-avert-weekend-government-shutdown\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n