Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins is accusing Democrats of refusing to negotiate government funding bills ahead of the September shutdown deadline and called off markups Monday night for the second week in a row.
Collins and the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, Washington Sen. Patty Murray, have been trading offers on overall totals for funding the military and non-defense programs for the fiscal year that kicks off Oct. 1. But an agreement has yet to be reached, and Democrats don’t want to forge ahead until there is an understanding on the balance between defense and domestic spending in the face of President Donald Trump‘s request for $1.5 trillion for the military.
Collins said in a statement Monday night that top Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee “have made clear they are not willing to work with us to pass” government funding bills, adding that “their insistence that it is not possible to move forward without a topline agreement is not accurate.”
Murray said Republicans are simply insisting on too much defense spending and not enough cash for programs that fund domestic priorities, including infrastructure improvements, child care, education and nutrition assistance for low-income babies and pregnant mothers.
“We are not close,” Murray told reporters Monday night. “They have a very high defense number. We’re just not going to agree to that.”
Refuting Collins’ accusations, the Washington Democrat said in a statement that “at every turn, I’ve worked in good faith to advance a bipartisan process.”
Murray said Republicans also want to block Democrats from offering amendments to the funding bills, including to bar the Trump administration from carrying out the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weoponization Fund” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers the administration won’t pursue.
“It’s also critical that Congress uses its immense power to put a check on the corruption we are seeing every day,” Murray said in a statement. “And for our members, that means taking action in our bills to do things like permanently block Trump’s slush fund, which I believe is a bipartisan goal we all share.”
Senate Republican appropriators met privately Monday night to discuss whether to proceed without the assurance that Democrats will support approving the funding bills in committee.
Leaving the meeting, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said Democratic leaders have instructed their appropriators to oppose the government funding bills no matter what.
“I have received information off the record from one of my Democratic colleagues that they have instructions to vote no on any appropriations bill,” Kennedy told reporters. “So even if we did agree to everything they wanted, they would still vote no.”
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