The heads of the House and Senate appropriations committees dropped the last massive funding package of the current spending cycle early Thursday morning, finally teeing up an end to the long-delayed spending fight.
The roughly $1.2 trillion package includes funding for six agencies, the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, State and Foreign Operations, Legislative Branch and Services, Financial Services, and Labor. Those agencies constitute the lion share of government funding, or about 70% of Congress’ constitutionally obligated funding responsibilities.
Congress has until Friday at midnight to vote on the package to avert a partial government shutdown.
House Speaker Mike Johnson touted conservative policy wins throughout the package, particularly focusing on spending bumps and policy wins — like an increase to 42,000 Immigrations and Customs Enforcement beds, slashing non-governmental organization funding by 20% and funding 22,000 border patrol agents — in the troublesome DHS bill.
Those policy tweaks and spending bumps were designed to bolster enforcement of border laws, which has been a sticking point for Republicans who say that President Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have so far not enforced border security measures.
“While these changes are welcome, only a significant reversal in policy by the President to enforce the law can ultimately secure our border,” Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, said in a statement.
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Eleventh-hour negotiations among the GOP-led House, Democrat-run Senate and the White House to include the troublesome DHS funding bill slowed the package, which was supposed to drop over the weekend.
A deal was struck Monday, causing lawmakers to work overtime to draft a new package.
But when a vote will happen is unclear, and Mr. Johnson has not committed to waiving an oft-ignored House rule that gives lawmakers 72 hours to review legislation amid pushback from Republicans demanding time to pour over the over 1,000 pages of the bill.
Other notable policy and spending changes include:
“Overall, during the [this year’s] appropriations process, House Republicans have achieved significant conservative policy wins, rejected extreme Democrat proposals, and imposed substantial cuts to wasteful agencies and programs while strengthening border security and national defense,” Mr. Johnson said.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.