What’s in the way of a deal as Congress, White House negotiate Ukraine and border funding

Geoff Bennett:

Congressional leaders are returning to the Capitol after spending the afternoon negotiating with President Biden at the White House, at stake, funding for Ukraine, Israel, and additional border security measures.

Amna Nawaz:

This as Congress faces a separate funding deadline Friday and potential government shutdown.

Lisa Desjardins is here to help us understand what is standing in the way of a deal.

Lisa, good to see you.

So, this White House meeting on Ukraine funding and border funding, who is in the room, and are they making progress?

Lisa Desjardins:

This was all the heavyweights on Capitol Hill, not just the party leaders in each chamber, McConnell, Schumer, Jeffries, and Speaker Johnson, but also the heads of all the relevant committees. So these are the heavy hitters all together in the room.

And I want to just remind people of the simple problem here. One, Ukraine, our allies, now been at war for almost two years, and if we do not continue funding them, they will have serious ammo and weapons issues at some point. They're saying that is coming sooner, rather than later.

At the same time, our own Southwest border has been overwhelmed in past weeks and months. And many people on Capitol Hill, not just Republicans, are saying we need to do more.

Now, while leaders came out of the meeting generally positive, saying that they all agree that both of these things have to be done, when you listen to sound from the Senate floor and also from after the meeting today, you can see that the key differences here still remain.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

At stake is the security of our country, the survival of our friends in Ukraine, the safety of our friends in Israel, and nothing less, nothing less than the future of Western democracy.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA):

We understand that all these things are important, but we must insist, we must insist that the border be the top priority. I think we have some consensus around that table. Everyone understands the urgency of that. And we're going to continue to press for it.

Lisa Desjardins:

The problem is what House Republicans, including right now Speaker Johnson, want to do with the border is different than what's going on in the Senate.

However, those Senate talks, we have been looking at them day after day after day, over border security still continue. I talked to one of the senators involved today, Chris Murphy. He said they're almost there. They're getting closer and closer. But he acknowledges this continues to happen. Senator Schumer says he thinks that they have a good chance of getting a deal next week, perhaps on the Senate floor.

But, by that, he said that's greater than 50 percent chance. So we're not sure.

Amna Nawaz:

In the meantime, we are now just two days away from a potential partial government shutdown. Where do things stand on that?

Lisa Desjardins:

Always cautious with these things, but, right now, the temperatures in the House and Senate are warm toward this deal that is emerging for short-term spending that would kick funding basically into March.

We have to watch and see the voting, but I think the Senate could move as soon as perhaps tonight or tomorrow even on these deals. Now, since things, they're going OK, I want to reflect on how we got here. We don't always just look at what the problem is in the Capitol.

They are trying to pass 12 different appropriations bills. So what happened is, the Senate has been passing bipartisan bills, 12 of them out of committee, which really was quite an achievement. The House, however, their committee bills were partisan, nearly only Republicans on those bills. They only managed to pass 10 out of committee, couldn't even get all of them done there.

Now, both chambers had problems getting all of those bills out of the chambers altogether. The result is that we have not had any spending bills pass Congress this year. Now, this has happened for many, many years, but I think we just assume that they can't get it done. And that's why I wanted to look at exactly what's happened here.

The Senate was able to pass some bipartisan spending bills earlier this year, but the partisanship overall shut that process down.

Amna Nawaz:

There's another issue I know you have been tracking, which is, they're talking about a potential deal on some potential tax cuts, some for businesses, some for struggling families. Where does that stand?

Lisa Desjardins:

This is a massive deal. This would be expanding the child tax credit and ultimately meaning more money especially for lower-income families. Millions of kids would benefit. This was a huge poverty reduction effort, also would be good for many businesses. Maybe 20 million jobs or so could be affected by these tax credits.

Now, there were two prime negotiators on this, the Ways and Means chairman, Jason Smith, on the House side, Republican, and Ron Wyden of the Finance Committee in the Senate, been working on this for months. They say they have got this ready to go. And my sources say that the House committee could pass this out as soon as Friday.

Maybe it gets to the House floor next week. Even though there are some who have questions about this deal, right now, it feels like it is moving along. And we're going to have to talk about what it means, because it would be a big bipartisan accomplishment.

Amna Nawaz:

It would be a big deal, indeed.

Lisa Desjardins, thank you so much.

Lisa Desjardins:

You're welcome.