Boehner-Obama Budget Meeting Fails to Produce Deal
House Speaker John Boehner did not reach a deal at a meeting at the White House with President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year, his office said on Tuesday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was among others at the Tuesday morning meeting which Obama invited participants to in an effort to avoid an April 8 deadline when funding for the federal budget will end.
While there was a good discussion, no agreement was reached, a statement posted on Boehner's congressional website stated.
The Speaker told the president that the House will not be put in a box and forced to choose between two options that are bad for the country.
Republicans are urging a third option, which would fund the government for an additional week, along with $12 billion in cuts, to secure additional negotiating time. In addition, the bill would fund the Department of Defense for the next six months.
Republicans' strong preference is that we instead pass a bipartisan agreement this week, according to the statement.
The statement also noted that there had never been an agreement on $33 billion as an acceptable level of spending cuts.
For the past several days, top Democrats in Congress have said that Boehner's negotiators had been working with that target. Republicans initially proposed $61 billion less in spending than President Obama's budget proposal last year.
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