Senators Still Struggling to Clinch Border Deal – By Yuval Rosenberg (The Fiscal Times) / Jan 23, 2024
The Senate’s drawn-out struggle to reach a deal on border policy changes and aid to Ukraine continues. But even before any agreement is reached, tensions have already risen with the Republican conference and tempers reportedly flared at a party lunch Tuesday.
Sen. James Lankford, the lead Republican negotiator, told his colleagues and reporters today that there won’t be any vote on a deal this week, though he still hopes to be able to produce legislative text.
The challenges to reaching a final deal are still considerable. For one thing, appropriators still have to figure out how much the deal would cost and how to budget for it. “It will definitely be more” than the $14 billion in border funding the White House originally sought, said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican appropriator, according to Punchbowl News. The border funding is a relatively small portion of a White House national security request that totaled more than $100 billion, including $61 billion in aid to Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel.
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