Congressional leaders reach a deal to fund the government, avert a shutdown
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.
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.
Appropriators will still have to finalize the text of the deal and Congress will need to pass the bills before the first government funding deadline on Jan. 19. The agreement is likely to enrage far-right House conservatives, who insisted on deep spending cuts and border restrictions as a price for their vote on a spending bill.
Indeed, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, criticized the agreement as "terrible" and added that it "gives away the leverage accomplished in the (already not great) caps deal. We'll wait to see if we get meaningful policy riders... but 1) the NDAA was not a good preview, & 2) as usual, we keep spending more money we don't have."
Opposition from far-right Republicans means the legislation will likely need to pass with significant support from Democrats in the Republican-controlled House.
"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," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a joint statement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., celebrated the deal for securing money for veterans and guaranteeing further cuts to the IRS and COVID relief funds.
Johnson conceded the spending levels "will not satisfy everyone and they do not cut as much spending as many of us would like," but he said the agreement puts Congress on a path to fight for more policy riders and spending cuts going forward.
Biden, in a statement, said the deal "moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he was "encouraged" by the deal. "America faces serious national security challenges, and Congress must act quickly to deliver the full-year resources this moment requires," he said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Lawmakers will now have to cobble together legislation that passes Congress before money runs out for some key programs Jan. 19. Funding for the rest of government expires Feb. 2.
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Transcript
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Congressional leaders have agreed to a deal to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year. The agreement would spend $886 billion on defense spending and roughly $773 billion on nondefense spending. It's yet to pass Congress, which is key, and we'll get back to that. But those figures stick to the spending levels agreed to by President Biden and former speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy in a deal last summer. This all means that the largest employer in the United States, the federal government, is much more likely to be able to keep sending out paychecks to its employees because the government is much less likely to shut down. NPR's Eric McDaniel covers Congress and joins us now. Hey, Eric.
ERIC MCDANIEL, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: How - perpetual Congress question - how far is this from a done deal?
MCDANIEL: Well, look, maybe it's 'cause it's the weekend, but I'm feeling like an optimist.
DETROW: OK.
MCDANIEL: When this announcement came out at 3:30 p.m., I was busy writing a radio script for tomorrow which said that we just had eight legislative days but effectively no plan to avoid a partial government shutdown on January 19 and a total government shutdown on February 2. But now there is sort of a plan. This is definitely a good sign. With congressional leaders on board and agreeing to a top-line number, it should be comparatively easy to get the 12 annual federal spending bills through that would fund the government for a year. But this could still get pretty ugly.
DETROW: Just how ugly, Eric?
MCDANIEL: Well, it's already shown to enrage the most anti-compromise part of the Republican Party. These are the hard-liners in the House Freedom Caucus and their allies who wanted to extract huge concessions on the border, on abortion access as well as overall spending cuts in exchange for keeping the government open. Congressman Chip Roy, one of these very folks, has already called the deal terrible, adding that it gives away leverage to get the policy concessions they were looking for. House Speaker Mike Johnson, the top Republican in the House, will not be able to pass any of these spending bills with Republican votes alone. In fact, if the spending bills from last year, the short-term extensions, are any indicator, it's likely that any spending bills in a Republican-controlled Congress will actually pass with more Democratic support than Republican support. And there are lots of procedural ways that Republicans upset about all of this could make things really gnarly over these next few weeks.
DETROW: Right. We've seen that group of legislators flex their muscles again and again over the course of this Congress. That's what booted the last speaker.
MCDANIEL: Yeah.
DETROW: So what comes next here?
MCDANIEL: Well, let's go with the construction metaphor. I guess you could say they've agreed on what the square footage of the house is, how much money they're going to spend, but they still need to map out the floor plan, where all that money's going to go, get all the permits, buy the materials and actually build the house. So there's a lot of actual legislating left to be done. That's what they'll work on over the next two weeks, but they've also got to deal with other hard things. You might remember that before the Christmas holiday, Senate negotiators were trying to find a path forward on the first immigration reform since 1986, which is also a deal that has to do with Ukraine and Israel military aid. They've linked those things together.
There are a record number of migrants coming to the U.S. southern border, sometimes more than 10,000 a day, presenting themselves to border protection agents, requesting asylum, and basically everyone involved agrees that the status quo isn't working. Democrats want more money to process those claims. Republicans want to limit who's legally allowed to request asylum to stop the flow of people coming. And as though that weren't hard enough, like I said, they've linked it to military aid in Ukraine and Israel. It's going to be a feat to behold if they can get all of this done. I will keep an eye on it and, of course, keep you updated.
DETROW: All of those things major issues where there's no clear path forward - but on the central one, funding the federal government, there is at least a plan in place now.
MCDANIEL: Thank goodness.
DETROW: Eric McDaniel, thanks so much.
MCDANIEL: Thank you.
DETROW: We'll talk to you soon.
MCDANIEL: Bye. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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