The deal is an important milestone in negotiations between the Democrat upper chamber and Republican lower chamber.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Jan. 7 announced that he had reached a deal with Senate Democrats and the White House on top-line spending numbers, a key step in the race to avert a government shutdown in the coming weeks.
Mr. Johnson announced the development in a “Dear Colleague” letter circulated to lawmakers.
“After many weeks of dialogue and debate, we have secured hard-fought concessions to unlock the FY 24 top-line numbers and allow the Appropriations Committee to finally begin negotiating and completing the twelve annual appropriations bills,” Mr. Johnson said.
The proposal suggests a top-line figure of $1.590 trillion for fiscal year 2024.
That figure, in line with the statutory requirements of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, passed last year, includes $886 billion for defense and $704 billion for non-defense expenditures.
Mr. Johnson boasted that the tentative agreement would include an additional $16 billion in spending cuts over the previously negotiated framework and a $30 billion overall reduction compared to the Senate’s original spending plan.
Under the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act, one of the final legislative acts of the 117th Congress, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was granted $60 billion in funding. Undoing this funding has been a key priority for Republican lawmakers in the 118th Congress.
The new deal would entail that roughly a third of that, $20 billion total, will be cut.
Additionally, Mr. Johnson boasted a $6.1 billion reduction in COVID-era “slush funds,” which he said Republicans won “despite fierce opposition from the White House.
“The result is real savings to American taxpayers and real reductions in the federal bureaucracy,” he wrote.
He acknowledged that “these final spending levels will not satisfy everyone, and they do not cut as much spending as many of us would like.”
But he extolled the deal nonetheless, saying: “This deal does provide us a path to 1) move the process forward; 2) reprioritize funding within the top-line towards conservative objectives, instead of last year’s Pelosi-Schumer omnibus; and 3) fight for the important policy riders included in our House FY24 bills.”
By Joseph Lord
