Lawmakers announced Sunday they’ve reached an agreement on spending levels for a new fiscal year 2024 budget—12 days before the existing deal is set to expire—but negotiations surrounding the funding remain ongoing, leaving open the possibility of a shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., left, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La. ... [+]
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday they’ve agreed to spend $1.6 trillion in fiscal year 2024, in line with current spending and the caps agreed to as part of last year’s deal to raise the federal debt limit
The budget includes $886 billion for defense spending that lawmakers already agreed to last month and $773 billion for non-defense spending.
The deal comes 12 days before the stopgap spending bill passed in November to avert a government shutdown was set to expire on Jan. 19.
The agreement could include new border controls as Republicans and Democrats have been locked in negotiations over the southern border for months, with right-wing lawmakers demanding the return of some Trump-era restrictions.
Republicans threatened last week to shut the government down if the new budget does not include additional additional border controls, an issue that has also stalled additional funding for Ukraine and Israel. Right-wing lawmakers are demanding a return to a host of Trump-era immigration policies, including restarting construction of the border wall and denying asylum seekers entrance into the U.S.
Congress in November passed a short-term spending deal to extend the fiscal year 2023 budget for some agencies through Jan. 19 and the rest through Feb. 2. The bill marked the first legislative achievement for Johnson as speaker and came just days before the previous stopgap measure, passed at the end of September, was set to expire.