Risk of United States govt shutdown eases with Trump's wall retreat

The Trump administration likely will seek money for the wall in legislation funding the government for the fiscal year starting October 1, but lawmakers are likely to balk again.And some Democrats, who had insisted the legislation contain guarantees that the Trump administration continue healthcare subsidies for millions of low-income people enrolled in Obamacare, no longer appear willing to slow down the legislation for this. And after a dispute between Mulvaney and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the administration agreed to keep funding cost-sharing payments under Obamacare that go to reimburse health insurers for reducing deductibles and co-payments for lower-income people.

If no spending measure is in place before 12:01am on Saturday, government funds will halt and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be temporarily laid off.

The weeks-long sniping over the health care issue had snagged the talks, which have progressed steadily for weeks and gained momentum earlier this week after Trump dropped demands for immediate money for building his long-promised border wall. The payments are a major way Democrats ensured low-income people would be covered under the Affordable Care Act, but with a new Republican administration, their future is uncertain. "We've now made progress on both of these fronts".

Partisan disagreements over the environment, abortion and GOP efforts to reverse Obama-era financial regulations continue to dog the negotiations, but both the administration and many congressional Democrats were hopeful of sealing an agreement relatively soon.

The spending measure, which would wrap together 11 unfinished spending bills into a single bill, represents the first real bipartisan legislation of Trump's presidency.

House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters on Wednesday (Thursday NZ Time) that he hoped there would be no need to pass a short, stopgap bill continuing spending at current levels and that a measure funding the government through September will instead be enacted in time for the midnight Friday (Saturday NZT) deadline. Perhaps it is time to take that one out of the deck.

Democrats will reportedly attempt procedural maneuvers to force a vote on a bill by Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) that would demand disclosures on Trump's taxes, business dealings, ethics waivers in the administration and details about whom he is meeting with at the White House and at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The Obama administration appealed, but after Trump won the election a year ago, the case was put on hold. Democrats won funding for medical research, Pell Grants and foreign aid.

The outlines of a potential agreement remained fuzzy, but aides familiar with the talks said Trump would emerge with border security money that's unrelated to the wall and a $15 billion down payment for military readiness accounts on top of $578 billion in already-negotiated Pentagon funding.

The GOP aide said that Pelosi and Mulvaney restated their positions ‎last night, and said the Democrats highlighting this fight is a "negotiating tactic".

House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks with the media as Congress works on a budget deal to avoid a U.S. government shutdown.

If Congress can not agree to either a short stopgap funding bill or a longer-term one by midnight Friday, federal agencies will run out of money and likely have to abruptly lay off hundreds of thousands of federal government workers until an appropriations bill is enacted.

Still outstanding: the fate of money to extend health care benefits to retired coal miners and Democrats' desire to help Puerto Rico, which is dealing with an economic crisis and may have trouble paying for Medicaid. Ultimately, Pelosi turned to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to obtain assurances that the administration would continue to provide the payments.