Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, arrives at the Capitol to meet with fellow Republicans at an early closed-door caucus, in Washington, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013. The federal government remains partially shut down and faces a first-ever default between Oct. 17 and the end of the month. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, arrives at the Capitol to meet with fellow Republicans at an early closed-door caucus, in Washington, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013. The federal government remains partially shut down and faces a first-ever default between Oct. 17 and the end of the month. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., arrives to join Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, and fellow Republicans for an early closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol in Washington, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013. The federal government remains partially shut down and faces a first-ever default between Oct. 17 and the end of the month. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland gestures towards the House floor as he gathers with House Democrats in Statuary Hall before they file onto the House chamber to sign a petition to re-open the government on Capitol Hill in Washington, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Talks to end the government shutdown and prevent a federal default have begun between Senate leaders, but negotiations between the GOP-run House and President Barack Obama have stalled, lawmakers said Saturday.
The developments marked a shift in focus from the House to the Democratic-controlled Senate as the partial shutdown reached its 12th day and five days were left before the time when administration officials have said the government will deplete its ability to borrow money, risking a first-time federal default that could jolt the world economy.
GOP senators said the talks between Senate Majority Leader Reid, D-Nev., and the top Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, had started Friday.
“The only thing that’s happening right now is Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell are talking. And I view that as progress,” said the second-ranking Republican senator. John Corny of Texas.
Word of those talks came as the Senate prepared to derail a Democratic measure to lift the government’s borrowing cap through the end of next year. Republicans were poised to reject it.
House Republicans said Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had told them at a closed-door meeting Saturday morning that his talks with Obama had grinded to a halt.
“The Senate needs to hold tough,” Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Boehner told House Republicans. “The president now isn’t negotiating with us.”
Conservatives said Obama was to blame.
“Perhaps he sees this as the best opportunity for him to win the House in 2014,” said Rep. John Fleming, R-La. “It’s very clear to us he does not now, and never had, any intentions of negotiating.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s not supposed to be this way,” President Barack Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. “Manufacturing crises to extract massive concessions isn’t how our democracy works, and we have to stop it. Politics is a battle of ideas, but you advance those ideas through elections and legislation — not extortion.”
A bipartisan group of senators, closely watched by Senate leaders, is polishing a plan aimed at reaching compromise with Obama.
An emerging proposal by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and others would pair a six-month plan to keep the government open with an increase in the government’s borrowing limit through January.
Obama has turned away a House plan to link the reopening of the government — and a companion measure to temporarily increase the government’s borrowing cap — to concessions on the budget.
In the face of disastrous opinion polls, GOP leaders have signaled they will make sure the debt limit is increased with minimal damage to the financial markets. But they’re still seeking concessions as a condition for reopening the government.
Obama met Senate Republicans on Friday and heard a pitch from Collins on raising the debt limit until the end of January, reopening the government and cutting the health care law at its periphery.
The plan also would strengthen income verification for people receiving subsidies through the health care law and set up a broader set of budget talks.
The Collins proposal would delay for two years a medical-device tax that helps finance the health care law, and it would subject millions of individuals eligible for subsidies to purchase health insurance under the program to stronger income verification.
Collins said Obama said the proposal “was constructive, but I don’t want to give the impression that he endorsed it.”
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Associated Press writers Alan Fram and David Espo contributed to this report.
Focus of shutdown negotiations shifts to Senate
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