Democrats accused Republicans Tuesday of walking away from budget talks that would cut spending and avoid a looming government shutdown for fear of angering grass-roots Tea Party conservatives.
With time running short, negotiators appeared to be making little progress in closed-door talks to finalize a budget for the remainder of the current fiscal year and ensure the government keeps operating beyond an April 8 deadline.
"I think they were in worse shape last night," said Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dick Durbin of the negotiations. Today "they're just in bad shape," he added.
The two sides are battling over spending levels for the 2011 fiscal year, which is nearly halfway over. Republicans hope to keep a campaign promise to scale back the government, while Democrats say that sharp spending cuts would hurt the economic recovery.
Democrats said the talks have foundered because Republicans are afraid of angering Tea Party activists who have little appetite for compromise, even though the two sides have each floated plans that now differ only by $6 billion as they try to finalize more than $1 trillion in spending.
"They seem to be afraid to anger a small extreme minority in their party that is willing to shut the government," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at a news conference.
House Speaker John Boehner said the two sides were not close to a deal because, aside from the amount to be cut, they differed on where the cuts should take effect.
Republicans want to deny funding to many of President Barack Obama's priorities, such as the healthcare overhaul and greenhouse gas regulation. Democrats have proposed cuts to transportation and benefit programs such as farm subsidies.
"Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. It is just not cutting spending," Boehner said at a news conference.
Both parties acknowledge the need to bring down budget deficits that have hovered around 10 percent of GDP in recent years due to the recession, tax cuts and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tea Party pressure
Boehner does, however, face a brewing rebellion among Tea Party-affiliated Republicans, many of whom voted against a stopgap bill to keep the government running earlier this month. Many of these lawmakers are new to Washington and eager to claim a victory on the issue that got them elected last fall.
"We're going to need to see a deal struck where our members can go home and tell their constituents that we're doing what we said we would do," said House Republican Leader Eric Cantor.
Tea Party activists are scheduled to hold a rally at the Capitol on Thursday.
The government is operating on an extension of last year's budget because lawmakers have not been able to agree on spending levels for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
Congress has approved six separate stopgap measures to keep the government running while talks continue, but many lawmakers say they won't support another extension.
Aides say a deal needs to be in place within the next few days to ensure it has enough time to pass Congress before the current stopgap expires on April 8.
The Republican-controlled House has passed a bill that would cut $61 billion and prevent Obama from spending money on his signature healthcare overhaul, greenhouse-gas regulations, and other priorities. That measure failed in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Senate Democrats have floated a proposal that would cut $20 billion on top of $10 billion in cuts that have already been enacted. According to Democrats, Republicans had offered a compromise last week that would have resulted in total cuts of $36 billion -- a mere $6 billion from the Democratic position.
Obama has also threatened to veto any bill that blocks his priorities.
The cuts in question would have little impact on the budget deficit, which is projected to hit $1.4 trillion this year, because they would spare the benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security that account for more than half of the $3.7 trillion budget.
House Republicans next week are expected to unveil a budget for the next fiscal year that proposes to trim Medicare and other health insurance programs and outline further spending cuts.