Congress reaches a deal on how much to spend for 2024 as shutdown deadline nears
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • 9 months ago • 15 commentsBy: Sahil Kapur, Rebecca Kaplan and Ali Vitali
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Jan. 7, 2024, 8:46 PM UTC / Updated Jan. 7, 2024, 11:28 PM UTCBy Sahil Kapur, Rebecca Kaplan and Ali Vitali
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a deal Sunday on how much the U.S. government will spend in the new year, a significant step toward avoiding a shutdown.
But while the agreement on a "topline" spending level breaks a logjam that had stalled the process, it doesn't necessarily extinguish the shutdown threat as the first of two deadlines nears on Jan. 19, when some parts of the government will run out of money.
"The bipartisan topline appropriations agreement clears the way for Congress to act over the next few weeks in order to maintain important funding priorities for the American people and avoid a government shutdown," Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, said in a statement.
The deal would establish an overall spending level of $1.59 trillion in fiscal year 2024, reflecting the bipartisan budget deal struck last year by President Joe Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Johnson, R-La., told colleagues in a letter. The breakdown is $886 billion for the military and $704 billion for nondefense spending, Johnson said.
Johnson added that there will be "key modifications" to the agreement in order to reduce nonmilitary spending with a $16 billion "offset." That includes $6.1 billion in unused Covid funds and $10 billion in IRS money under the Inflation Reduction Act, Johnson said.
"While these final spending levels will not satisfy everyone, and they do not cut as much spending as many of us would like, this deal does provide us a path to: 1) move the process forward; 2) reprioritize funding within the topline towards conservative objectives, instead of last year's Schumer-Pelosi omnibus; and 3) fight for the important policy riders included in our House FY24 bills," Johnson wrote in his letter to colleagues.
A senior Democratic aide said the Biden-McCarthy deal included $20.2 billion in IRS cuts spread over two years; the new agreement with Johnson just means they'll happen over one year instead.
After the agreement was announced, Schumer told his caucus "it's a good deal for Democrats and the country" on a briefing call with senators, according to a source on the call.
Schumer and Jeffries said that when factoring in the added $69 billion, the nondefense discretionary spending level will be $772.7 billion in the new fiscal year under the deal.
"The framework agreement to proceed will enable the appropriators to address many of the major challenges America faces at home and abroad. It will also allow us to keep the investments for hardworking American families secured by the legislative achievements of President Biden and Congressional Democrats. Finally, we have made clear to Speaker Mike Johnson that Democrats will not support including poison pill policy changes in any of the twelve appropriations bills put before the Congress," they said.
The Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate still need to establish — and agree on — how to allocate those funds. Then they'll need to write and publish legislation to that effect and pass that through both chambers.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a conservative hard-liner, sounded unhappy with the emerging details in Iowa on Sunday while campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.
"I don't like what I'm hearing," Roy said.
Roy said the spending level after including the nondefense spending adjustments is $1.644 trillion. "$1.644 is s---, and you can quote me on that," he said.
The House Freedom Caucus said Sunday night on X that the deal was "even worse than we thought," calling it a "total failure."
Another obstacle to passing funding legislation is that conservative hard-liners like Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., have threatened a shutdown unless Congress acts to toughen immigration and asylum laws by the funding deadline.
Biden praised the agreement in a statement Sunday.
"The bipartisan funding framework congressional leaders have reached moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities. It reflects the funding levels that I negotiated with both parties and signed into law last spring," he said. "Now, congressional Republicans must do their job, stop threatening to shut down the government, and fulfill their basic responsibility to fund critical domestic and national security priorities, including my supplemental request. It's time for them to act."
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If they are still sending ANY money out of the country there should not be a shutdown.
threatened a shutdown unless Congress acts to toughen immigration and asylum laws by the funding deadline.
I double-dog dare you to follow the laws and take care of the U.S. first -'specially U.S. citizens.
Shut it down if any funding is allocated for outside U.S. interests.
“Shut it down if any funding is allocated for outside U.S. interests.”
Our interests must be recognized on a worldwide stage if we are to maintain a leadership role.
The alternative, protectionism, has never worked and will make us followers, acquiescent, and even more internally dysfunctional…if possible.
We can not continue to pay for everything for everyone.
We are some $34 TRILLION in debt.
Let the rest of the world do it for while so we can at least attempt to return to some sort of financial sanity.
I know fools say the debt doesn't matter, and that alone makes them fools.
semantics aside, that would lop off more than half of the defense budget...
We spend more on interest payments on debt than we do on defense.
China appreciates your support.
Especially after draining all of that money and advanced weaponry to Ukraine.
it's going to be highly entertaining to watch mike sell out the freedom caucus to get a deal done, again...
alternative caption to the article picture - "did you hear the one about the evangelical congressman and his DC intern?"
Democrats will bitch if a deal isn't done, and they will bitch if it does get done.
Traitor Joe Biden has run the largest deficit in US history in a non-Covid-pandemic year.
And would have spent billions MORE had the court not knocked down his crazy vote-buying scheme of forgiving college debts for many folks at the expense of all taxpayers.
but he is still doing it.........................
I guess it will be spun that Traitor Joe is 'saving democracy' by forgiving debts and saddling taxpayers with more of a burden.
Traitor Joe says "We don't need no stinking court to fuck my plan up!"
But America needs women studies degrees at 250,000 a pop, they are so valuable to our economy.
Government shutdowns are very inefficient and end up costing more money than otherwise would have been spent. The impact depends on the duration but includes: