With the shutdown looming, House and Senate leaders agree on spending levels

Senate and House leaders announced Sunday that they had reached an umbrella agreement on government funding for 2024, but it was not clear whether they would be able to ratify and enact the deal into law in time to to avoid a partial government shutdown in less than two years. to soften.

After weeks of negotiations and on the eve of Congress’ return from vacation, top members of the Senate and House of Representatives said they had agreed to set the total spending figure at nearly $1.66 trillion, boosting funding in would be in line with the deal concluded between President Biden last year. and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who faced fierce conservative opposition.

The deal includes an increase in Pentagon spending to $886.3 billion and keeps non-defense funding essentially steady at $772.7 billion, including $69 billion in additional money agreed to through a handshake deal between Mr. McCarthy and the White House. Those additional expenses will be offset by accelerating $10 billion in cuts to IRS enforcement and recovering $6 billion in unspent Covid dollars and other relief funds. Officials said the deal did not include an additional $14 billion requested by Republican and Democratic appropriators in the Senate to increase both domestic and military spending.

“By securing the $772.7 billion in non-defense discretionary funding, we can protect important domestic priorities like veterans benefits, health care and nutritional assistance from the draconian cuts sought by right-wing extremists,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and Majority Leader . , and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, said in a joint statement.

Briefing his colleagues on Sunday about the framework he was negotiating, Mr. Schumer called it a “good deal for Democrats and the country,” and he and Mr. Jeffries said Congress should take a bipartisan approach to “a costly and prevent a disruptive shutdown’. .”

In a letter to his colleagues, Speaker Mike Johnson highlighted the cuts Republicans had secured, especially the additional $10 billion from the IRS, saying the “result is real savings for American taxpayers and real reductions in the federal bureaucracy. ”

Calling the agreement the best spending deal Republicans had made in years, Mr. Johnson acknowledged that “these final spending levels will not please everyone, and they will not cut as much as many of us would like.”

President Biden noted that the deal “provides a path” to funding the government without deep cuts.

“Republicans in Congress must do their job, stop threatening to shut down the government, and fulfill their fundamental responsibility to fund critical domestic and national security priorities, including my additional request” for Ukraine and Israel, he said in a statement.

Congress faces the initial deadline for passing four spending bills on January 19, and reaching an overall agreement on overall funding is just the first step in avoiding a shutdown. A second deadline for completing the remaining eight appropriations bills, including the one for the Pentagon, looms on February 2. Finishing the job can prove to be quite a task. Lawmakers returning to Washington also face big decisions on the emergency spending package for Ukraine and Israel, which Republicans have refused to consider without a strict new immigration policy to stem the flow of migrants into the United States.

“The bigger problem I see is: How can a bill that would combine four separate bills pass both chambers and become law in less than two weeks?” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Senate spending panel. “This will not be easy, to say the least in 2024.”

Sen. Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and chair of the Appropriations Committee, said Sunday that she will “work with my colleagues around the clock in the coming days to avoid an unnecessary shutdown.”

At the same time, Mr. Johnson is under increasing pressure from some ultraconservatives in the House of Representatives to reject any spending deal unless Mr. Biden and Democrats in Congress agree to stricter new controls to limit the flow of migrants across the southern border. Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have reported progress toward an agreement to impose new immigration restrictions, which could come as soon as this week, but Republicans in the House of Representatives have signaled they want tougher measures.

Senate and House Democrats are insisting that the upcoming spending bills be free of the policy dictates that House Republicans have tried to spread through their bills aimed at restricting abortion rights and curbing what they view as a “woke” and weaponized federal bureaucracy. But Mr Johnson said on Sunday he planned to “fight for key policymakers” in the House measures.

The new spending deal allows the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees to set funding levels for the dozens of individual spending bills for the federal government. For it to go into effect, they would have to agree on the four programs set to expire in mid-January – covering veterans’ programs, transportation and housing, energy and water projects, and agriculture and food and drug regulation – and pass them through the Member States must guide. House and Senate and to Mr. Biden’s desk.

Congress could potentially avoid a partial shutdown by passing another short-term funding bill if lawmakers run out of time. But Mr. Johnson explicitly ruled out another temporary measure when he pushed through the current funding with Democratic help in November. Given his shrinking majority in the House of Representatives due to resignations and illnesses, he will likely need substantial Democratic votes to push through any spending package, giving House Democrats significant influence in shaping the measures.

Mr. Johnson sought to downplay Conservative demands to tie government spending to the border situation during an appearance Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

But Rep. Chip Roy, the Texas Republican who campaigned in Iowa this weekend with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, suggested he would not drop the issue, posting the hashtag #NoSecurityNoFunding” on social media on Sunday.

“I got some text messages today from – I won’t say who – one of the Republican leaders saying that my tactics and my position on the southern border are not helpful, that they are ‘checking off’ some of my colleagues. he told a crowd in Ankeny. “I said, ‘Well, it won’t be the first time and it won’t be the last time.'”

Mr. Roy said he was “a hard, forceful no to limiting spending and not securing the border, and that’s where it looks like we’re going.”

Should Congress fail to pass all 12 spending bills, it would trigger automatic, across-the-board spending cuts of 1 percent, a setback included in legislation to suspend the debt limit passed last June to avoid federal bankruptcy. Mr Johnson and other Republicans in the House of Representatives have warmed to the possibility of extending the emergency spending bill until the end of the budget on September 30 and accepting the budget blow as an alternative to passing the spending bills.

This approach has drawn fierce opposition from both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, the White House and Democrats in the House of Representatives, who say it would undermine domestic programs and cut Pentagon spending at any cost. costs should be avoided.

If the effort to pass spending bills stalls, Congress could also approve a yearlong continuation of current funding and vote to eliminate the 1 percent cut. That approach would nullify any policy and funding changes in the pending spending bills, a scenario those who wrote the measures would like to avoid. Ms. Collins said this approach would eliminate a 30 percent increase in shipbuilding funds and leave dozens of new Pentagon programs without money.

Negotiators predict they are close to an agreement on strict new border regulations, although they have not yet agreed on all issues under discussion. The latest sticking points include a dispute over how and when migrants should be released into the country on parole pending their immigration court dates — a practice the GOP wants to curtail and replace with Trump-era policies to keep migrants in Mexico to hold if the detention focuses on being oversubscribed on the American side of the border.

“We hope to have the text released later this week,” Sen. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, said on “Fox News Sunday,” noting that negotiators wanted to give lawmakers time to closely inspect the bill before it could be passed. would be voted on. to ensure that “no one gets stuck in this process.”

Senate Democrats and Republicans are expected to be briefed on the broad outlines of the new deal at their party policy lunches on Tuesday, and Republicans plan a special conference meeting on Wednesday to further discuss the details.

Karoun Demirjian contributed reporting from washington, and Catie Edmondson from Ankeny, Iowa.