Siobhan Hughes and Kristina Peterson write the White House and Republican leaders are gearing up to identify a strategy to manage sequestration caps for the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years.
“We’d like to settle a top line for both years so that next year we can have a regular appropriations process,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was quoted as saying by WSJ.
President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) also want to collaborate with Democratic leaders to work out a two-year budget deal, the newspaper reports.
The preliminary budget talks started before Boehner announced his plans to resign from Congress at the end of this month as House and Senate lawmakers try to prevent an Oct. 1 shutdown with a stopgap funding bill.
The bill would keep the government funded until Dec. 11 and Congress aims to pass it by Wednesday.