House Republican leaders summoned their rank and file to a late night meeting for what aides said would be an update on the talks.
Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, stands as the elevator door closes on Capitol Hill as Congress continues to debate in hope of avoiding a government shutdown Friday, April 8, 2011 in Washington.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON — Perilously close to a government shutdown, the White House and congressional leaders reached out for a possible deal to cut tens of billions of dollars in federal spending and avert the closure, officials said Friday night.
House Republican leaders summoned their rank and file to a late night meeting for what aides said would be an update on the talks.
Democrats said they were reviewing the details of a possible tentative agreement.
The developments unfolded as the administration readied hundreds of thousands of furlough notices for government workers and warned that federal services from national parks to tax-season help centers would be shuttered without a deal by midnight.
"We know the whole world is watching us today," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., during a day that featured incendiary, campaign style rhetoric as well as intense negotiation.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, told reporters gathered outside House Speaker John Boehner's office there was no agreement yet, and there was no claim to the contrary from the White House or Senate Democrats.
But other Republicans said the framework of a tentative agreement was in place, ready to be outlined for the newly empowered GOP House majority that came to Congress determined to cut spending and rein in government.
Boehner drew strong applause as he walked into the private meeting. According to an email message from one person in attendance, the Ohio Republican began by saying there was no agreement, then proceeded to lay out the framework that was emerging from the negotiations.
Any agreement was likely to include spending cuts in the range of $38 billion to $40 billion while funding the government through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.
Republicans also pushed for dozens of non-spending measures favored by conservatives, but it seemed likely most of them would be jettisoned.
Earlier in the evening, Boehner indicated his own optimism about a deal, telling reporters, "I was born with a glass half full."
Reid, Obama and Boehner all agreed a shutdown posed risks to an economy still recovering from the worst recession in decades.
But there were disagreements aplenty among the principal players in an early test of divided government — Obama in the White House, fellow Democrats in control in the Senate and a new, tea party-flavored Republican majority in the House.
"Republican leaders in the House have only a few hours left to look in the mirror, snap out of it and realize how positively shameful that would be," Reid said at one point, accusing Republicans of risking a shutdown to pursue a radical social agenda.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. gestures while meeting with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, April 8, 2011, to discuss the budget impasse. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Hours later, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on the Senate floor Republicans had abandoned a demand to remake a federal program that provides family planning services and women's health care in a way that could jeopardize funding for Planned Parenthood.
The proposal drew withering criticism from Democrats during the day, and unexpectedly, several conservative Republican senators urged their counterparts in the House not to shut the government down over the issue.
It was not clear what, if any, substitute might be agreed to.
Republicans and Democrats alike said the GOP appeared to be abandoning a demand to block numerous Environmental Protection Agency regulations on polluters. A federal study of the likely economic impact of the agency's rules was one possible alternative under discussion, they added.
For much of the day, Reid and Boehner disagreed about what the disagreement was about.
Reid said there had been an agreement at a White House meeting Thursday night to cut spending by about $38 billion. He said Republicans also were demanding unspecified cuts in health services for lower income women that were unacceptable to Democrats.
"Republicans want to shut down our nation's government because they want to make it harder to get cancer screenings," he said. "They want to throw women under the bus."
Boehner said repeatedly that wasn't the case — it was spending cuts that divided two sides.
"Most of the policy issues have been dealt with, and the big fight is about spending," he said. "When will the White House and when will Senate Democrats get serious about cutting federal spending."
By midday Friday, 12 hours before the funding would run out, most federal employees had been told whether they had been deemed essential or would be temporarily laid off in the event of a shutdown.
The military, mail carriers, air traffic controllers and border security guards would still be expected at work, although paychecks could be delayed.
National parks and forests would close, and taxpayers filing paper returns would not receive refunds during a shutdown.
Passports would be available in cases of emergencies only.
Obama canceled a scheduled Friday trip to Indianapolis — and a weekend family visit to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia — and kept in touch with both Boehner and Reid.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sounded hopeful, predicting an agreement and saying, "I assure you, these are not unresolvable issues."
The House passed legislation on Thursday to keep the government running for another week while also cutting $12 billion in spending — and providing enough money for the Pentagon to operate through Sept. 30.
Boehner urged Obama to reconsider a veto threat.
That seemed unlikely, although Republicans and Democrats alike talked of trying once more to pass a stopgap bill if the larger agreement remained elusive.
Obama has already signed two of those interim bills, which included a total of $10 billion in spending cuts.
The standoff began several weeks ago, when the new Republican majority in the House passed legislation to cut $61 billion from federal spending and place numerous curbs on the government.
In the weeks since, the two sides have alternately negotiated and taken time out to pass interim measures.
Originally, Republicans wanted to ban federal funds for Planned Parenthood, a health care services provider that is also the nation's largest provider of abortions.
Federal funds may not be used to pay for abortions except in strictly regulated cases, but supporters of the ban said cutting off government funds for the organization — currently about $330 million a year — would make it harder for it to use its own money for the same purpose.
Democrats rejected the proposal in private talks. Officials in both parties said Republicans returned earlier in the week with a proposal to distribute federal funds for family planning and related health services to the states, rather than directly to Planned Parenthood and other organizations.
Democrats said they rejected that proposal, as well, and then refused to agree to allow a separate Senate vote on the issue as part of debate over any compromise bill.
Instead, they launched a sustained campaign at both ends of the Capitol to criticize Republicans.
"We'll not allow them to use women as pawns," said Sen. Patty Murray, a fourth-term lawmaker from Washington who doubles as head of the Democratic senatorial campaign committee.
For Congress and Obama there are even tougher struggles still ahead — over a Republican budget that would remake entire federal programs, and a vote to raise the nation's debt limit.
Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Alan Fram, Julie Pace and Ben Feller contributed to this story.