MNI BRIEF: US Relief Talks Trip On Fed Lending As Cutoff Nears

The U.S. federal government is nearing a shutdown Friday as a year-end Covid relief deal remains elusive due to disagreement over Federal Reserve lending, and at least one senator is threatening to withhold consent for a short-term funding measure to keep departments and agencies open.

Top Democrats and Republicans disagree over reviving a series of lending facilities. The White House is "strongly in support" of Republican efforts to close out Fed lending programs and rescind unused funding appropriated in March, said Larry Kudlow Friday, the chief of the National Economic Council. President-elect Joe Biden's incoming chief economic adviser Brian Deese said in a statement Friday that a coronavirus relief plan under negotiation in Congress should not include a provision that would restrict the ability of the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to fight future economic crises.

Raising the chances of a government shutdown at midnight, Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri who has pushed for boosted direct checks to Americans, said Friday he's not going to allow a stop-gap funding measure to pass unless leaders give him a more detailed briefing about the relief package.