Senate Republicans are gearing up for negotiations with Democrats to fulfill President Trump’s request for a southern border wall, but have yet to decide exactly how much money they’ll push for in a year-end spending deal that will dominate the post-election “lame duck” session.
“That’s the central question right now,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., told the Washington Examiner Tuesday, when asked about the wall funding figure as lawmakers returned for the lame-duck session. “We ought to try to resolve it. I’m going to try to meet with the president and the leader and we’ll see.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said last month he plans to seek $5 billion for a border wall in the negotiations to fund the remaining seven fiscal 2019 spending bills.
Shelby has appropriated $1.6 billion in wall funding for fiscal 2019, but he said the figure could go higher.
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Read more at the Washington Examiner.
