Congress back at work to keep US govt shutdown short-lived

January 21, 2018 00:00:00

Congress prepared to return to work Saturday as negotiators pressed for a budget deal to keep a government shutdown that began at midnight short-lived, reports The Washington Post.

Agencies shut down for the first time in more than four years late Friday after senators rejected a temporary spending patch and bipartisan efforts to find an alternative fell short as a midnight deadline came and went.

Republican and Democratic leaders both said they would continue to talk, raising the possibility of a solution over the weekend. Office of Management and budget director Mick Mulvaney said Friday that the conflict has a "really good chance" of being resolved before government offices open Monday, suggesting that a shutdown's impacts could be limited.

The House was expected to reconvene at 9 a.m. and the Senate at noon. Meanwhile, House Republicans and

Democrats planned for separate caucus meetings at 10 a.m. Saturday to kick off private talks. But the White House drew a hard line immediately after midnight, saying they would not negotiate over a central issue - immigration - until government funding is restored.

"We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. "This is the behavior of obstructionist losers, not legislators. When Democrats start paying our armed forces and first responders we will reopen negotiations on immigration reform."

Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning to lay the blame on Democrats, saying they "are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border. They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead."

He also noted in a follow-up tweet that Saturday is the first anniversary of his inauguration and that "the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present."

Both parties confronted major political risks with 10 months to go until the midterm elections. Republicans resolved not to submit to the minority party's demands to negotiate, while Democrats largely unified to use the shutdown deadline to force concessions on numerous issues - including protections for hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants. The standoff culminated in a late-night Senate vote that failed to clear a 60-vote hurdle.