Border wall muddles federal funding extension debate

WASHINGTON—Lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill facing a Friday deadline to avoid a government shutdown. But the president’s desire to fund construction of a U.S. southern border wall could complicate an already contentious process.

Without a new spending bill, the government shuts down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, leaving little time to wrap up intricate negotiations to keep federal operations up and running. But Saturday is also symbolic for President Donald Trump, marking his 100th day in office. With that in mind, his top officials began a last-minute push over the weekend to make it clear that keeping the government funded is important but so is keeping one of Trump’s key campaign promises: building a wall.

“This is what the president ran on,” White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told The Washington Post on Sunday. “We want to get to a place this week where border-security money is being directed to the Department of Homeland Security so that we can begin surveillance and preliminary work, and then we will keep working on getting DHS what it needs for the structure.”

In March, the White House released its first budget blueprint, asking for major cuts to federal agencies in favor of bolstering military spending and an allocation to start building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The proposal asked Congress to assign $1.4 billion for the wall in the current fiscal year, with an additional $2.6 billion for fiscal year 2018, which begins Oct. 1.

Trump said repeatedly he would build the wall and make Mexico pick up the tab. But since Trump took office, the Mexican government adamantly refuses to take part. Trump now says taxpayers may have to pay upfront and get reimbursed at a later date.

“Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall,” the president tweeted Sunday.

Without the wall, “the drug situation” will never resolve properly, he added Monday.

“Well, we’re going to get paid for it one way or the other,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Sunday on ABC. “There are a lot of ways we can find money to help pay for this.”

Republicans in Congress support Trump’s plan to ramp up border security, but some suggest jamming a multi-billion dollar wall expenditure into this week’s must-pass spending bill may not be the best idea.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a strong wall supporter, told Fox News Sunday compromises must come this week. He said once the government is sufficiently funded, then Congress can work on finding money for a wall.

Others agree wall negotiations need to take a back seat.

“I think that’s a fight worth having and a conversation and a debate worth having for 2018,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told CBS. “If we can do some of that now, that would be great. But we cannot shut down the government right now.”

After spending the last two weeks away from Washington, lawmakers have a lot on their agenda, including passing major healthcare legislation and moving forward with tax reform.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., convened a Saturday conference call to get Republicans on the same page before their return. Ryan told them the top priority is to keep the government funded. The GOP leadership team has worked closely with the White House, so Ryan said he expects Trump to support whatever they pass.

But Republicans must come to a bipartisan consensus since they need at least eight votes from Democrats to pass a spending bill out of the Senate and onto the president’s desk. If negotiations sputter, Ryan suggested they may pass a one-week stopgap bill to buy more time.

Meanwhile, Democrats want no part of a spending bill that pays for Trump’s wall.

“The Democrats do not support the wall,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told NBC. “The wall is, in my view, immoral, expensive, unwise, and when the president says ‘Well, I promised a wall during my campaign,’ I don’t think he said he was going to pass billions of dollars of cost of the wall on to the taxpayer.”

If Congress wants to pass a major piece of spending legislation and not the one-week stopgap, Republican leaders will need to unveil the bill by Wednesday at the latest. The GOP has a self-imposed rule requiring legislation be public for at least three days before a floor vote.