(Bloomberg) -- House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said she won't support a budget deal to raise spending for defense and domestic programs without a commitment from House Speaker Paul Ryan to consider immigration legislation, raising a hurdle to negotiations just two days before another possible government shutdown.
Pelosi said she wants Ryan to make the same commitment to an open debate on immigration that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made, which opened the way for Senate Democrats to support the budget proposal.
“Why can't we have some kind of commitment on this side of the aisle?" Pelosi said on the House floor Wednesday. Without that, “this package does not have my support nor does it have the support of large numbers of members of our caucus."
Current government funding runs out at the end of the day Thursday. The House passed a bill Tuesday that would keep the government open only until March 23 while funding the Pentagon through September. Congressional leaders are negotiating to replace that temporary measure with a broader budget deal, and White House congressional liaison Marc Short said earlier Wednesday such an agreement could be wrapped up by the end of the day.
Votes from Democrats would be needed to get the budget agreement passed in the House, because many Republicans are balking at raising non-defense spending. The total cost amounts to about $300 billion for this fiscal year and the next one that begins Oct. 1. The deal would break the cycle of temporary funding measures that the government has been operating under since the start of the current fiscal year.
It also may combined with other important but stalled measures, including lifting the federal debt ceiling and hurricane disaster aid.
‘Very Concerned'
Pelosi said that even though the plan includes many Democratic priorities, it "does nothing" to shield young undocumented immigrants from deportation after President Donald Trump cancels the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. On Tuesday, pro-immigration Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois said he was "very concerned" that Senate Democrats were caving in by agreeing to address immigration separately from a spending bill.
While bipartisan negotiations have been taking place on legislation to protect the young immigrants known as dreamers, Ryan has hewed to an immigration outline set out by Trump.
While that would provide a path to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, it also would drastically curtail family sponsorships for green cards, a step that Democrats have rejected.
“We're not going to bring immigration legislation through that the president doesn't support,” Ryan said on Tuesday.
His spokeswoman AshLee Strong added Wednesday, “Speaker Ryan has already repeatedly stated we intend to do a DACA and immigration reform bill – one that the president supports.”
Three-Day Shutdown
McConnell broke an impasse over immigration in the Senate that triggered a three-day government shutdown by promising Democrats that he would allow open debate and amendments to put together an immigration bill.
A two-year budget deal under discussion would lift budget caps each year for defense by about $80 billion, while non-defense spending limits would be raised by about $60 billion. Budget maneuvers would be used to add more domestic spending, allowing Democrats to claim that defense and non-defense are being treated equally.
Both McConnell and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday that they were close to an accord.
Republican Representative Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he won't support an increase in domestic spending. He told MSNBC Wednesday the concern of deficit and fiscal hawks is that an increase of the debt ceiling will be added in and “it will be a Christmas tree of spending” and “a lot of votes will be bought.”
Meadows said Tuesday there would be enough Republican resistance that Ryan would need as many as 90 Democratic votes to get it passed in the House.
Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founding member of the caucus, said he and other members of the group, view the deal to be "terrible" based on what they've heard about the details.
“No way we are going to support that," said Jordan, in an interview. “We almost thought about changing our vote last night, given that this appeared to be just a game and they were already working on a plan to increase spending like crazy on non-defense.”
Trump threatened Tuesday to force a shutdown if Democrats refuse to meet his demands on immigration legislation.
“I'd love to see a shutdown if we don't get this stuff taken care of,” Trump said at an event with law enforcement officials to discuss MS-13, a predominantly Latino gang whose members include undocumented immigrants.
--With assistance from Billy House
To contact the reporters on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net, Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net, Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
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