Obama, House leader fail on budget deal
By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press
Apr 5, 2011 1:58 PM CDT
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio follows a staff member as he walks past media after a closed conference meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)   (Associated Press)

A visibly frustrated President Barack Obama emerged from a failed meeting on a budget deal Tuesday and said he would demand daily sessions with House Speaker John Boehner until an agreement was hammered out to prevent a U.S. government shutdown at week's end.

Obama spoke not long after Boehner's office issued a statement that insisted the two sides remained far apart and that Republicans had never, as the White House contends, agreed on $33 billion in cuts to the federal spending allotment for the remaining six months of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Boehner and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid met in the White House Tuesday as the clock ticked toward a midnight Friday expiration of the government's spending authority.

"We are closer than we have ever been to an agreement. There is no reason why we should not get an agreement," Obama said in a surprise appearance in the White House reporters briefing room.

The president said Boehner and Reid were meeting later Tuesday, but if that session produced no agreement he would summon both men back to the White House Wednesday and daily thereafter, if necessary.

"Myself, Joe Biden, my team we are prepared to meet for as long as possible to get this resolved," Obama said.

Obama had barely finished speaking when Boehner strode before microphones to insist that the White House and Senate Democrats bow to demands for deeper cuts. Boehner is under extreme pressure from newly elected House members, many with allegiance to the ultraconservative tea party, to slash spending, the size of government and lower taxes.

Short of a long-term deal, Boehner has proposed an agreement that would keep the government running for one more week and cut another $12 billion in spending. Boehner has already orchestrated action by Congress to pass a pair of stopgap bills, so far cutting $10 billion from an estimated $1.2 trillion budget to fund the day-to-day operations of government through the fiscal accounting period.

Obama said he would only accept another short-term funding extension, of two or three days, to get a longer-term deal through Congress. But he ruled out a longer extension to allow negotiations to continue.

"That is not a way to run a government. I cannot have our agencies making plans based on two week budgets," Obama said. "What we are not going to do is once again put off something that should have been done months ago."

Boehner said Republicans "will not be put in a box" of accepting options they refuse to endorse.

Democrats accuse Republicans of pushing for harmful spending cuts and attaching a social policy agenda to the must-pass spending bill. Boehner counters that the White House is pressing gimmicky budget cuts.

As a government shutdown appeared increasingly inevitable, the White House has begun advising government agencies on the proper steps in preparation for a shutdown of the government. Republicans on Monday disclosed plans to instruct lawmakers "on how the House would operate in the event Senate Democrats shut down the government."

And in a memo to agency officials, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jeffrey Zients, urged agency heads to refine and update contingency plans in the event negotiators don't strike a deal by Friday's deadline.

Boehner's one-week plan could reassure tea party-backed lawmakers who are among the most vocal in seeking to reduce the size and scope of the government. It could also put pressure on Democrats and the White House to offer greater spending cuts.

But there's no visible movement on an impasse over Republican policy riders attacking Obama's health care and financial reform laws, cutting taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood and reversing a host of Obama's environmental policies.

On a separate long-term track, Republicans controlling the House have fashioned plans to slash the budget deficit by more than $5 trillion over the upcoming decade, combining unprecedented spending cuts with a fundamental restructuring of taxpayer-financed health care for the elderly and the poor.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled the Republican budget blueprint Tuesday morning just as Boehner headed to the White House.

Ryan's program includes a controversial proposal to convert the traditional Medicare health care program for the aged into a system by which private insurers would operate plans approved by the federal government.

Current Medicare beneficiaries or workers age 55 and older would stay in the existing system.

At the same time, Republicans propose to sharply cut projected spending on the Medicaid state-federal health program for the poor and disabled and transform it into a block grant program that gives governors far less money than under current estimates, but considerably more flexibility.

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