Republican leadership appears willing to extend the April 28 deadline to fund the government or face a shutdown, according to two GOP sources, to give lawmakers more time to reach a compromise on a spending bill.
Congress will reconvene Monday after a two-week Easter recess, and the sources said there simply may not be enough time to reach consensus before the clock runs out. In that case, Republicans would be willing to adopt a temporary measure that would keep the government running for about another week so that lawmakers can finish negotiations.
Leadership from both parties have spent weeks hashing out the details of the spending bill with the White House. Support from Democrats will be critical to securing funding, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has toned down his rhetoric on the issue over the past month.
Some of the sticking points that remain are funding for the wall along the Mexican border that President Donald Trump promised during the campaign, money for a deportation task force, defunding Planned Parenthood, and payments to insurers under the Affordable Care Act.
"We want to make sure it's a good budget that meets our principles," Schumer said Tuesday of the negotiations. "But so far, so good."