Republicans and Senate Democrats have reached a 10th-hour spending deal to fund the federal government for the rest of 2024.
On Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that Republicans negotiated billions in spending cuts to offset a government shutdown. The deal is designed on caps and side spending agreements agreed upon in a debt limit deal last year. It included a side agreement for further budget changes set at $1.59 trillion for fiscal year 2024.
“The topline constitutes $1.590 trillion for [fiscal 2024] — the statutory levels of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. That includes $886 billion for defense and $704 billion for non-defense,” Johnson said in a “Dear Colleagues” letter.
Johnson said that this will leave $704 billion in non-defense spending, touting “the first cut in non-VA, non-defense appropriations in years.”
In a separate statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the deal bonded $772.7 billion for non-defense discretionary funding while protecting “key domestic priorities like veterans benefits, health care and nutrition assistance from the draconian cuts sought by right-wing extremists.
Schumer’s office highlighted an additional $69 billion as part of a “side agreement” between former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and President Joe Biden in the debt ceiling agreement to account for the discrepancy.
Johnson also said the deal would include $10 billion in “additional cuts” to the IRS. However, Schumer’s office said this is part of the $20 billion in cuts that were already agreed to and will most likely happen “this year rather than over the course of two years.”
Both parties agreed that Sunday’s deal recoups $6.1 billion in unspent COVID aid funds.
Johnson said that the deal allows House Republicans to continue to fight “for conservative policy wins” by advocating for policy riders to appropriations bills and to “reprioritize” spending in the budget.
