AP Photo Congress, White House make progress on 2-year budget deal The agreement would also raise the debt ceiling until March 2017.

House and Senate Republicans will meet in closed sessions Monday evening, as congressional negotiators and the White House near a two-year budget deal that would boost defense and domestic spending by tens of billions of dollars, and lift the debt ceiling until March 2017.

The ambitious accord, which is being negotiated by top House, Senate and White House officials, would boost defense and non-defense spending by $50 billion next year, and $30 billion the year after, split evenly between defense and non-defense programs. Negotiations are fluid, however, and details might change before legislation is filed.


A cap on premium hikes for Medicare Part B beneficiaries — sought by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) but initially rejected by the White House — would also be part of the deal. Medicare Part B covers doctors’ services, outpatient hospital services, and some home health care. The deal under discussion is also expected to address Social Security disability insurance, according to multiple sources.

The new spending in the plan would be offset by extending existing measures to contain Medicare and hospital outlays, the sources said.

House and Senate Republicans are expected to discuss the proposal at separate meetings in each chamber Monday evening.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "is going to talk to members of our conference and sort of test the waters and see where we go from here," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the majority whip, said.

A bill could be filed by Monday night, which could set up a mid-week vote.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the presumptive House speaker, is not part of the talks. On Wednesday, House Republicans meet to choose their new speaker, and on Thursday, the entire House will vote. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he would like to clear the legislative decks for the next speaker. Boehner leaves Congress after Thursday afternoon.

White House officials and GOP congressional negotiators spent most of the weekend working on an agreement that could take a shutdown threat off the table through the 2016 election, a source familiar with the negotiations said.

Democrats are pushing hard to force revisions of a 2011 budget accord. Spending bills have backed up in Congress, and government funding runs out in mid-December. Senate Democrats have bottled up spending bills, and President Barack Obama vetoed a defense authorization bill last week.

Negotiators have pegged a deal as costing about $80 billion a year for more defense and discretionary spending. That's a difficult target to meet through spending cuts, fees and other revenue-raisers that do not constitute tax increases.

If a deal comes together, it would have to pass the House with overwhelmingly Democratic support, as conservative Republicans are unlikely to support an agreement. It would also be difficult for McConnell to marshal a majority of GOP senators to support such an accord.

Any deal would be a boon to Ryan as he moves toward the speakership. An accord would remove the threat of a government shutdown through the 2016 election.

McConnell told reporters Monday that members of his caucus would be briefed this week on the parameters of the emerging deal.

"We're still talking. We're still talking," McConnell said of the negotiations.

Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also expressed optimism about clinching an agreement.

"I would hope that we'd come to a resolution, Democrats and Republicans, that is good for our country and economy," Reid said on the Senate floor.

But one top Democratic senator, Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, said there are too many unknowns — about how the agreement would affect the Social Security disability program, Medicare and other "riders" that might be attached — to celebrate yet.

"It'd be amazing if we can pull this off," Durbin said, "but there are a lot of questions."

Republican senators were optimistic as they emerged from a leadership meeting with McConnell late Monday afternoon, but said the financing of the bill is still being worked out.

"There is a framework but I would say that it's certainly not locked in, in the sense that there are things that are subject to change depending on what the feedback is," said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican.

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.