(Reuters) - The Obama administration made a last-ditch attempt on Thursday to drum up Democratic support to salvage a faltering $1.1 trillion spending bill, just hours ahead of a midnight U.S. government shutdown deadline.
Administration officials from President Barack Obama down to staff at the Department of Education were phoning Democrats in the House of Representatives to ask them to set aside objections to a financial provision and pass the measure to fund most of the government through September. "We believe that this compromise proposal merits bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, and hopefully will arrive on the president's desk in the next few days. And if it does, he will sign it," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
House Speaker John Boehner launched a similar effort to bring reluctant conservative Republicans on board after delaying a mid-afternoon vote to drum up more support. Both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans were still urging their colleagues to oppose it. A provision to roll back part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law has incensed the left, while those on the right are unhappy that the bill fails to fight Obama's immigration reform.
The fate of the measure was uncertain by late afternoon as both groups huddled across Capitol Hill. But congressional aides in both parties insisted that Congress would not allow the government to shut down when current spending authority expires by midnight. Republicans had prepared backup plans for short-term funding extensions of either two days to allow Senate passage of the full funding measure, or up to three months in case it fails, aides in both parties said.
The 1,603-page measure, negotiated by Republican and Democratic appropriators and leaders, sparked a revolt when rank and file Democrats discovered it would kill planned restrictions on derivatives trading by large banks, allowing them to continue trading swaps and futures in units that benefit from federal deposit insurance and Federal Reserve loans.
The Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers also were worried about setting a precedent that emboldens Republicans to cram more Dodd-Frank rollbacks into must-pass legislation, especially when Republicans have control over both chambers of Congress next year. The Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul was enacted in the wake of a financial crisis triggered partly by the collapse of complex mortgage derivatives.
While the White House said it objected to the Dodd-Frank provision, its mobilization to secure passage showed it put more value in securing full-year spending authority for all but one agency. A senior Democratic aide said administration officials were telling party members they should take the spending deal because funding for many of their priorities "is going to get a lot tougher next year" when Republicans control both the House and Senate.
The Pentagon and other agencies also would lose billions of dollars in extra funding in the proposed bill to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria and Ebola in West Africa if it fails.
The bill came within two votes of dying in a procedural vote earlier on Thursday, prompting Boehner to scour the Capitol for more support. Some Democrats also demanded the removal of a provision that allows a massive increase in individual contributions to national political parties for federal elections, potentially up to $777,600 a year.
If it survives, the spending bill would give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) a funding extension through Feb. 27. That would give Republicans leverage over DHS next year, when they will have a stronger majority and take control of the Senate. The Republicans intend to deny funding to the agency for implementation of Obama's order allowing millions of undocumented immigrants to stay and work in the United States.
(Reuters)
