Last Sunday (7th) local time, US congressional leaders announced an agreement on the highest spending level for the fiscal year 2024 (October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024), reducing the possibility of partial government shutdown on January 20th.
Senate Majority Leader and Democrat Chuck Schumer, along with House Speaker and Republican Mike Johnson, negotiated and reached this agreement, clearing the way for the Senate and House Appropriations Committees to negotiate detailed spending bills as they have overall limits on the total amount of spending bills.
According to Johnson, the agreement sets a cap of $1.59 trillion on 12 annual expenditure bills, of which $886 billion is for defense spending and $704 billion is for non defense spending.
However, Democrats have stated that they have received a certain amount of funding allowed under the "collateral agreement" with the debt ceiling.
Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement, "By ensuring $772.7 billion in non defense discretionary funding, we can protect key domestic priorities such as veterans' welfare, healthcare, and nutritional aid from the severe cuts sought by right-wing extremists."
Therefore, with approximately $70 billion in ancillary transactions, the actual upper limit is $1.66 trillion. An aide to a Democratic congressman in Congress stated that the difference between the two was an "adjustment portion" and was included in the agreement on that day.
After the bipartisan agreement, US President Biden issued a statement saying that the spending agreement "takes us one step closer to preventing unnecessary government shutdown.". He called on Republicans in Congress to stop threatening to put the government in a "shutdown" and fulfill their basic responsibilities.
"Now, Republicans in Congress must do their job well, stop threatening to shut down the government, and fulfill their basic responsibilities to provide funding for key domestic and national security priorities, including my supplementary requests. Now is the time for them to take action," he wrote.
However, the matter is not over yet, and the US government has not completely avoided the "shutdown crisis".
It is reported that most federal government agencies in the United States will be shut down on January 19th due to running out of operating funds, and the remaining agencies will run out of operating funds on February 2nd. Analysts point out that although the agreement has driven the legislative process of potential funding bills, it does not indicate that the two parties in Congress have bridged their differences, and the 12 funding bills are still on hold.
Johnson admitted in the letter that the level of spending reached in the agreement "cannot satisfy everyone" and cannot be reduced as expected by some lawmakers. Therefore, the possibility of a federal government shutdown still exists.