Senate Passes $1 7 Trillion Spending Bill, in Bid to Avert Government Shutdown The New York Times

Table Of Content

• Biden and congressional leaders announce a deal on government funding as a partial shutdown looms
• Appropriations legislation
• Senate passes 2022 federal spending bill, sends to Biden’s desk
• Leaders in Congress reach agreement on spending levels in key step to avoiding shutdown
• January 2024 continuing resolution
• United States federal budget
• House and Senate leaders reach deal on 6 spending bills in push to avoid partial shutdown
• Speaker Johnson navigates 'mission impossible' to avoid shutdown, without clear plan

Under current law, the VA must send a beneficiary’s name to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System whenever a fiduciary is appointed to help manage someone’s benefits. This year’s spending package prohibits the VA from transmitting that information unless a relevant judicial authority rules that the beneficiary is a danger to himself or herself, or others. “House Republicans secured key conservative policy victories, rejected left-wing proposals, and imposed sharp cuts to agencies and programs critical to President Biden’s agenda,” Johnson said in a prepared statement. "After preparing final text, this package of six full year Appropriations bills will be voted on and enacted prior to March 8," they wrote.

Biden and congressional leaders announce a deal on government funding as a partial shutdown looms

The figures represent about a 5% increase in nondefense spending, and an 8% hike for defense and Pentagon programs. With government funding partially expiring on Friday, House and Senate negotiators have reached an agreement to prevent a shutdown. Congress will have to officially pass the deal, which already has some challenges. Specifically, conservatives in the Senate want to shore up immigration and border security demands—while conservatives in the House have tied funding decreases to requests for aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Congressional leaders struck an agreement to keep the government funded and avert a shutdown. The deal still needs to get through Congress, where it is likely to face opposition from conservatives.

Appropriations legislation

This legislation would restart construction of the border wall, deploy more border patrol agents, strengthen laws against human trafficking, and end the Biden administration’s catch-and-release policy while creating a stricter asylum process. He later clarified that negotiations on the budget bill are ongoing and he’ll consider all aspects of the legislation before making a final decision on how he’ll vote. The final compromise House and Senate appropriators reached this week also cut back a roughly equal amount of spending the the White House wanted to spend on COVID relief.

Senate passes 2022 federal spending bill, sends to Biden’s desk

But as CNN reported, both sides of the aisle agreed to a side deal worth $69 billion, bringing the nondefense spending total to $773 billion and the top line to $1.659 trillion. Despite the deal, time is short to assemble and pass legislation putting the agreement in force before a Jan. 19 deadline. But Wednesday, rank-and-file House Democrats rebelled against cuts Republicans had negotiated in previously approved pandemic aid for 30 states to help pay for the new spending. Rather than delaying the entire bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., removed all the pandemic funds. As to the Defense budget, DoD leaders had previously estimated that a year-long CR would have left it with $20 billion less in spending power than it had the year before, partly because simply extending 2021 appropriations for another year would have left billions of dollars in accounts that don’t need and can’t spend the money.

Leaders in Congress reach agreement on spending levels in key step to avoiding shutdown

Johnson would then likely have to bring the bill up through a streamlined process requiring two-thirds support to pass. In a letter to colleagues, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday the agreement would secure $16 billion in additional spending cuts from the previous agreement brokered by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden and is about $30 billion less than what the Senate was considering. If those numbers sound familiar, they are similar to the amounts approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee in the debt ceiling agreement. “Throughout the negotiations, Democrats fought hard to protect against cuts to housing and nutrition programs, and keep out harmful provisions that would further restrict access to women’s health, or roll back the progress we’ve made to fight climate change,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in support of the legislation. Overall, this year’s spending bills would keep non-defense spending relatively flat with last year’s bill, despite the rise in inflation, and some $70 billion less than what President Joe Biden originally sought.

January 2024 continuing resolution

"The remaining six Appropriations bills – Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS, Legislative Branch, and State and Foreign Operations - will be finalized, voted on, and enacted prior to March 22." House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell and the House and Senate appropriations leads, released a joint statement on Wednesday committing to a plan to approve the legislation before the end of March. Johnson said he is staying firm on his demand for the passage of HR2, or the Secure the Border Act.

United States federal budget

The vote to approve it was , but House Republicans were divided, with 113 in support and 97 against. House Speaker Mike Johnson highlighted some key policy and spending wins for conservatives, even as many of his GOP colleagues consider the changes inadequate. Some House Republicans had hoped the prospect of a shutdown could leverage more concessions from Democrats. One factor that helped generate a final compromise was Democratic leaders’ decision to restore the practice of earmarks. This year’s bill included thousands of those projects at a price tag of several billion dollars.

House and Senate leaders reach deal on 6 spending bills in push to avoid partial shutdown

The agreement includes an increase in Pentagon spending to $886.3 billion and holds nondefense funding essentially flat at $772.7 billion, including $69 billion of added money agreed to through a handshake deal between Mr. McCarthy and the White House. That additional spending is offset by speeding up $10 billion in cuts to I.R.S. enforcement and clawing back $6 billion in unspent Covid dollars and other emergency funds. Officials said the agreement did not include an additional $14 billion sought by the Republican and Democratic appropriators in the Senate to beef up both domestic and military spending. Approval of the sprawling package came less than three days after it was unveiled, as lawmakers raced to avert a government shutdown and codify dozens of fiscal and legislative priorities.

Speaker Johnson navigates 'mission impossible' to avoid shutdown, without clear plan

Congress Agrees on Spending Levels as Government Shutdown Looms - The New York Times

Congress Agrees on Spending Levels as Government Shutdown Looms.

Posted: Sun, 07 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

In some politically contentious years when these negotiation processes deadlock, the Legislative Branch passes a continuing resolution that essentially extends the current funding levels into the new fiscal year until a budget can be agreed upon by a majority of both houses and signed into law by the President of the United States. Supplemental appropriations bills can provide additional appropriations for emergencies and other matters. President Biden called the framework "one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities," noting, "It reflects the funding levels that I negotiated with both parties and signed into law last spring." In November, Congress passed a short-term bill extending funding for government services at current spending levels. A shutdown would have forced many federal employees to go without pay until Congress passed another funding bill, and while that disruption has been avoided for now, the threat will arise again in the coming weeks.

Passing the federal spending package now will also ensure that government funding levels are set in stone while Democrats still control both the House and Senate. If either the Senate or House were to fail to advance the bill, there's a good chance it would be punted into the new year, when Republicans will control the House. From October 1, 2023, to March 23, 2024, the federal government operated under continuing resolutions (CR) that extended 2023 budget spending levels as legislators were debating the specific provisions of the 2024 budget. Most of the “no” votes are expected to come from Republicans, who have been critical of the overall spending levels as well as the lack of policy mandates sought by some conservatives, such as restricting abortion access, eliminating diversity and inclusion programs within federal agencies, and banning gender-affirming care. Schumer tweeted out a line from the statement, saying, "By securing the $772.7B for non-defense discretionary funding, we can protect key domestic priorities from the draconian cuts sought by right-wing extremists." Congressional leaders have reached an agreement on a framework to avert a shutdown and keep the federal government funded until the end of the fiscal year.

After months of negotiations, House and Senate leaders reached an agreement Sunday on total spending levels to fund the government in 2024. Given that the measure is the last must-pass bill before the holidays and the end of the 117th Congress, lawmakers shoved dozens of separate funding and legislative priorities into the package. The compromise offered Democrats a final opportunity to set the federal budget while they still control both chambers of Congress. The bill, which funds the government through the end of September, substantially increases spending and provides $858 billion in military funding and more than $772 billion for domestic programs.

A spokesperson for Rep. Burgess Owens said he will release a statement after giving the agreement a closer look.

Lawmakers needed an agreement on overall spending levels so that appropriators could write the bills that set line-by-line funding for agencies. House and Senate leaders have announced a spending deal for government funding in 2024—and the IRS will be impacted. It's the latest in the ongoing battle to keep the federal government's lights on. The 4,155-page bill will provide $772.5 billion for nondefense discretionary programs, and $858 billion in defense funding, according to a summary released earlier this week by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

That translates to roughly $886 billion in defense spending (an approximately 3% increase) and $704 in non-defense spending (about 1% decrease), including a $69 billion side deal in adjustments that will go toward non-defense domestic spending. Biden, in a statement, said the deal "moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities." The agreement sets topline spending levels at $886 billion for defense spending for the current fiscal year and roughly $773 billion for non-defense spending. The defense figure reflects the deal reached last year by President Biden and former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Congressional leaders hope to complete votes on the package this week and continue negotiations on the remaining six annual spending bills to pass them before a March 22 deadline. The vote both avoids the prospect of government shutdowns through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, and eliminates the threat of a year-long continuing resolution that federal agencies had feared.

Though White House officials initially told Congress that Biden wanted $30 billion more to continue battling COVID-19, a few days later, he formally requested a scaled-back $22.5 billion. In bargaining over a final bill with skeptical Republicans, who said Congress had already spent enough, top Democrats settled for $15.6 billion. To that end, the bill also allocates $13.6 billion in funding toward military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine — those funds are about evenly divided between the Defense and non-Defense accounts. President Biden’s campaign had $85.5 million on hand at the end of March, filings show, and Donald Trump had $45 million, but the president is spending far more freely on the race.

Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran and head of #AfghanEvac, a coalition supporting Afghan resettlement efforts, called it an “unequivocal win” if the legislation is ultimately passed. There’s no good reason for us to have one this week now that we’re getting very close to finishing the job,” Schumer said. House Republicans have been determined to end the practice of packaging all 12 annual spending bills into one massive bill called an omnibus. “We want to get it done before the government funding expires Friday,” Scalise said. The agreement speeds up the roughly $20 billion in cuts already agreed to for the Internal Revenue Service and rescinds about $6 billion in COVID relief money that had been approved but not yet spent, according to Johnson’s letter. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders.