U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers failed to reach a 2011 budget agreement Tuesday, and the president said it would be “inexcusable” if the two sides cannot achieve a compromise.
Mr. Obama met at the White House with top congressional leaders in an effort to avert a shutdown of the U.S. government at the end of the week, if no budget agreement is reached. He said Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are closer than ever to reaching a deal that would fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year in September.
Late Tuesday, the top Republican in the House of Representatives, John Boehner, met with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to try to craft a compromise that could win enough votes to be approved by Congress.
But there was no apparent breakthrough. An aide to Boehner said the two congressional leaders agreed to continue working on a budget solution.
Mr. Obama had said that if the two failed to reach a deal, he would summon them back to the White House on Wednesday for more discussions.
The U.S. government has been operating with a series of stopgap funding measures since last October. But the country’s leaders have not been able to reach a pact on funding the remaining six months of the fiscal year. Mr. Obama said it “would be inexcusable for us” not to be able to finish “last year’s business.”
If no deal is reached this week, government agencies will run out of funding after Friday, and many services deemed non-essential would be halted starting Saturday.
Mr. Obama said he is opposed to another stopgap spending extension, unless the lawmakers had reached essential agreement and needed a very short time to finish passage of the budget.
The president said an agreement is needed to avoid jeopardizing the country’s economic recovery. Republicans say they do not want a shutdown, but that sharp spending cuts must be enacted to help cut the government’s deficit.
The White House and congressional leaders have been trying to cut at least $33 billion from the $1 trillion-plus discretionary part of the U.S. government’s budget.
But Tea Party supporters among the Republican majority in the House of Representatives have been seeking broader cuts of at least $61 billion. It is part of their effort to cut the size of the federal government, one of their campaign platforms when they were elected last November.
Boehner said Republican negotiators would continue to “fight for the largest (spending) cuts possible.”
