It May Be a ‘Budget Battle,’ but Some Skirmishes Have Little to Do With Money

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
NYT

WASHINGTON — There are fights about money and fights about ideas, and the battle over a spending plan to keep the government open is increasingly centered on the latter.

The frenetic negotiations to avert a government shutdown seem largely focused not on dollars and cents, where the two sides are not all that far apart, but on policy issues, primarily abortion and environmental regulations, that defy easy compromise.

“We’ve been close on the cuts for days,” Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said Thursday, adding, “The only things — I repeat, the only things — holding up an agreement are two of their so-called social issues: women’s health and clean air.”

Speaker John A. Boehner begged to differ, saying that Democrats and Republicans were far apart in every way. After a meeting on Thursday at the White House, Mr. Boehner said, “When I see what the White House has to offer today, it’s really just more of the same.”

(More here.)