United States – President Joe Biden is today meeting the top four congressional leaders in an effort to persuade the lawmakers to pass the resolutions in time before the shutdown. the emergency funding to assist Ukraine and Israel.
Productive Meetings
Biden said that the meetings with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. had all been productive. Notably, the vice president Kamala Harris was also in the audience, as reported by The Associated Press.
Prioritize Government Operations
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden chaired the oval Office meeting so that U.S. national security interests are “put first.” She added that among the interests was to continue to fund the government.
“Look, what the president wants to see is we want to make sure that the national security interests of the American people get put first, right?” she said Monday as Biden flew to New York. “It is not used as a political football, right? We want to make sure that gets done.
Additionally, Jean-Pierre stated that maintaining the government’s operations is a “basic, basic priority” for Congress. “And we also want to see that, you know, that the government does not get shut down,” she said, as reported by The Associated Press.
Deadline Looms
The top two senators in the Senate also recommended the continuation of the government.
If a spending agreement is not reached and legislation is brought to Biden for his signature, parts of the government may begin to reduce their operations as early as Friday.
“We want to avoid a government shutdown,” Schumer said Monday on the Senate floor. “We want to work with all our House counterparts to spare the American people the pain that a shutdown would bring.”
In addition, McConnell asked the political parties to cooperate in order to prevent a shutdown that was “entirely avoidable.”
“Shutting down the government is harmful to the country,” he said Monday in a separate floor speech. “And it never produces positive outcomes on policy or politics.”
$95 Billion National Security Package
With the House under pressure to enact a $95 billion national security package which will, among other issues, assist Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific, Johnson leads the House. It sailed through the Senate on a bipartisan 70-29 vote this month, but Johnson wouldn’t commit to setting for a vote in the House earlier, as reported by The Associated Press.
Among these non-national security trimmings, funds for agriculture, transportation, and military construction, as well as some of the veterans’ programs, will expire this Friday. The appropriations for the unfinished fiscal year, which includes the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and the State Department, will expire on March 8 in the next seven days.