GOP leaders still lack funding plan as shutdown looms

Top House Republicans are at a standstill on exactly how to keep the government open next week amid mounting fears of a Christmastime shutdown on Capitol Hill.

House GOP leaders couldn’t agree on a funding strategy — which involves billions for President Donald Trump’s border wall — in multiple rounds of talks Wednesday.

The House is now poised to leave town Thursday for five days without offering a clue to how it will avoid a crippling funding lapse for roughly a dozen agencies.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has cautioned members that they may need to come back Monday and Tuesday for a last-minute session on funding bills. But even the House GOP‘s spending chief said Wednesday that he was in the dark.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his deputies are discussing several hard-line spending tactics that would assert support for Trump’s $5 billion wall request. Those ideas, though, would do nothing to resolve the bitter standoff with Democrats that threatens a shutdown at midnight on Dec. 21.