BUDGET BRINKMANSHIP: Congressional leaders from both parties and both chambers head to the White House today for more talks aimed at breaking the impasse over this year’s federal budget. And once again the specter of a government shutdown or another continuing resolution hangs over the negotiations. Every day without a real budget is a day the Pentagon can make no progress in rebuilding declining readiness, much less begin to fulfill the president’s promise to massively rebuild the military that a bipartisan consensus in Congress agrees is overcommitted and underresourced. If no deal is reached by the Jan. 19
deadline
O BUDGET, WHERE ART THOU?: Congress has just 11 days, including the weekend, until the current stopgap measure keeping the military and rest of the federal government funded expires. After being put on ice over the holidays, the talks over a 2018 spending bill have now become entangled in the immigration debate. Democrats want guarantees that an estimated 700,000 young people who arrived illegally as children will be able to stay in the United States.
