Obama calls budget talks as shutdown looms

WASHINGTON — Closed-door federal budget negotiations hit a standstill just days before government funding expires, and President Obama summoned congressional leaders to the White House for a Tuesday meeting that could provide the setting for a deal.

Negotiators tripped on several difficult issues as they tried to craft the details of an agreement that would cut $33 billion from domestic spending over the remaining six months of the 2011 fiscal year.

Federal government workers began preparing for a disruption in government services, including a possible delay in income-tax refunds, that would occur if a compromise is not struck by Friday's shutdown deadline.

Republicans and Democrats risk voter backlash if they can't agree on a 2011 spending plan. A new Pew Research Center poll showed voters would almost equally blame Republicans and the Obama administration if the government is shut down. But both also face the anger of supporters, with conservatives clamoring for deeper cuts and liberals demanding social services and programs for the poor be spared.

House Republicans have grown eager to turn the page on the 2011 budget debate. GOP leaders on Tuesday will unveil their 2012 budget, an ambitious blueprint that aims to fulfill their campaign pledge to dramatically cut the size and scope of federal operations, going beyond the 12 percent slice of the budget now under being debated.

Still, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, remains under pressure from tea-party conservatives not to yield to Democrats. He insisted Monday no agreement on the $33 billion package had been reached.

"I've made clear that their $33 billion is not enough and many of the cuts that the White House and Senate Democrats are talking about are full of smoke and mirrors," Boehner said. "That's unacceptable."

A major disagreement has to do with the types of programs to be cut. Republicans have insisted that the savings come by shrinking discretionary domestic programs. Substantially cutting or eliminating such programs would make it politically difficult to reinstate them in future years.

Democrats, though, have introduced ways to save money by reducing accounts in mandatory programs such as agriculture supports and transportation projects. Some programs have unspent funds that could be used as one-time or ongoing savings.

The GOP had included such reductions in an earlier House-passed bill, but Democrats want to expand their use to as much as half the $33 billion to come from those kinds of savings.

The Senate has rejected both the earlier House bill, with $61 billion in cuts, as well as a smaller Senate bill. House freshmen have pressed their own party leaders to hold out for their steeper package of $61 billion in cuts.

Many conservatives want to see inclusion of nearly 70 policy proposals — such as measures to defund Planned Parenthood and gut the Environmental Protection Agency — which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said would not be accepted by Democrats.

William Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents 110,000 workers across the country, said the ripple effect of employees being out of work would particularly hurt small communities that rely on government employers. Roughly 85 percent of the federal workforce lives outside of the Washington, D.C., area, he said.

The shutdown would come at the peak of tax season, noted Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union. If IRS employees are deemed "nonessential" workers, as they were in 1995, sending them home would likely result in delayed tax refunds, she said.