Washington (CNN) — House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, announced this afternoon that negotiators had not yet been able to reach an agreement on a federal budget covering the remainder of the current fiscal year.
The two men made the announcement after emerging from a round of talks at the White House with President Barack Obama. They said they expected to resume talks later this afternoon and would return to the White House for additional discussions at 7 p.m..
If Congress and the White House cannot reach an agreement by midnight tomorrow , when the current spending authorization measure expires, parts of the government will close down.
Shortly before Reid and Boehner addressed reporters, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a short-term government spending bill that would delay the impending shutdown by one additional week.
The measure, which passed 247-181 in a largely party-line vote, funds the Pentagon for the remainder of the current fiscal year. It would also slash federal spending, however, by another $12 billion and is strongly opposed by Democrats in both Congress and the White House because of the programs for which funding would be cut.
