By Kristina Peterson
15 hours ago
Meanwhile, a Senate rule change pushed through by Democrats should help ease the way for confirmation of several of President Barack Obama's executive-branch and judicial nominees, even as Republicans still have the power to prolong the process.
Lawmakers' top priority is avoiding the prospect of another government shutdown, after congressional warring led to a partial closure in October. Late last week, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D., Wash.) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) appeared to be closing in on a modest budget deal expected to allow spending of roughly $1 trillion in each of the next two years, potentially averting the threat of a shutdown with weeks to spare before current government funding runs out Jan. 15.
"I'm hopeful that next week we can show the people of this country that we can produce something that is smarter than the way we're going about things now," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) said on the House floor shortly before lawmakers left town last week.
Aides to Ms. Murray and Mr. Ryan worked over the weekend toward reaching an agreement, and the lawmakers plan to meet early this week.
"Negotiations are making progress, moving in the right direction," Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Sunday on ABC, noting that he had recently spoken with Ms. Murray.
The two budget leaders hope to forge a compromise that would lessen the blow of the second round of across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester, scheduled to take effect in January.
Because Republicans have refused to raise taxes and Democrats have declined to consider major cuts to Medicare or other entitlement programs, any deal is likely to mitigate only a modest chunk of the sequester. To permit spending to rise above levels set in 2011, lawmakers would need to agree on ways to trim the federal budget deficit elsewhere, potentially by increasing fees for airport security and federal guarantees of private pensions.
An agreement would mark a rare moment of bipartisan accord brokered without the specter of a government shutdown or financial chaos. However, even a deal reached by two lawmakers popular within their own parties would still have to secure the support of a GOP caucus unafraid to buck its leadership and a Democratic caucus concerned about other expiring programs. In recent weeks, Democrats have pushed to extend emergency benefits for the long-term unemployed past their Dec. 28 expiration, but Mr. Durbin said Sunday he didn't expect it would become a make-or-break issue in the budget talks.
If a budget deal is reached, one option is for the agreement to bypass a vote within the 29-lawmaker budget conference committee and go straight to the full Senate and House for a vote, though no final decision has been made, aides said.
Bipartisan movement is seen in other areas as well. Lawmakers indicated last week they had made progress negotiating the first new, five-year farm bill since 2008, although tentative agreements on certain programs providing federal support to farmers could be scuttled if estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office show them to be too expensive. The bill lapsed in September, and lawmakers have been working for weeks to mesh legislation passed by the House and Senate before January, when the reversion to decades-old law could start to affect dairy programs, potentially leading to a surge in the price of milk.
Lawmakers have yet to formally agree on the politically explosive topic of how much to trim from food-stamps funding, which has traditionally been part of the farm bill. House Republicans want to cut spending on food stamps by nearly $40 billion over a decade, while Senate Democrats agreed to cut just $4 billion in their bill.
"We won't have a deal before the 13th [Friday], but we'll have one I think in January," Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, told reporters recently.
Before the House leaves this week, GOP leaders hope to pass legislation preventing a 24% cut to physicians' Medicare payments, a perennial patch known as the "doc fix," which the Senate hopes to tackle as well.
The Senate will remain in session for a week after the House adjourns for the year. As many as six of Mr. Obama's high-profile nominees could soon be confirmed by the chamber, thanks to the Democratic majority's recent rules change limiting the Republican minority's ability to filibuster the president's executive and most judicial nominees. Already approved by Senate committees are Mr. Obama's choices to lead the Federal Reserve, Homeland Security Department and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and three nominees to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Although virtually assured of eventual confirmation in the Senate, the nominees will be competing with must-pass legislation for the limited amount of floor time left in the year, as Republicans may seek to use the full debate time permitted for many of the nominees, often 30 hours.
One closely watched indicator of any lingering rancor will be whether Republican senators drag their feet in giving committees consent to consider judicial nominees from their home state, which is known as turning in "blue slips."
One of the senators most outraged by the rules change, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), has since submitted his blue slips for five Arizona district court nominees, his staff confirmed. However, his Arizona GOP colleague, Sen. Jeff Flake, hasn't yet done so because his review of the nominees isn't complete, according to his staff.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) has signaled he will maintain the tradition of including home-state senators in the process, as long as it isn't being abused.
Another test could come in the final hours of the session, when the Senate customarily approves a large bloc of noncontroversial presidential nominees through the consent of all 100 lawmakers. That process could be blocked or slowed if even one lawmaker opposes it.
Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com and Michael R. Crittenden at michael.crittenden@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications As many as three of President Barack Obama's nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit could soon be confirmed by the Senate. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said as many as two nominees to that court could soon be confirmed.
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