Both the House and Senate are in session today for the first time in 2024.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) announced a deal Sunday on how much the U.S. government will spend in the new year, a significant step toward avoiding a January 19th shutdown. The deal would establish an overall spending level of $1.59 trillion in fiscal year 2024, reflecting the bipartisan budget deal struck last year by President Joe Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California). The breakdown is $886 billion for the military and $704 billion for nondefense spending which Speaker Johnson detailed in a Dear Colleague letter adding that there will be “key modifications” to the agreement in order to reduce nonmilitary spending with a $16 billion “offset.” That includes $6.1 billion in unused Covid funds and $10 billion in IRS funding under the Inflation Reduction Act. The $20.2 billion in IRS cuts were previously spread over two years; the new agreement proposes that they happen over one year instead. The Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate still need to establish — and agree on — how to allocate those funds, then they’ll need to write and publish legislation to that effect that can pass through both chambers. There are less than two weeks before the first shutdown deadline of January 19th, when funding is set to lapse for agencies including the departments of Transportation; Housing and Urban Development; Energy; and Agriculture. The deadline for the remaining government agencies is February 2nd. Congress in November passed a short-term spending deal to extend the fiscal year 2023 budget for some agencies through January 19th and the rest through February 2nd. 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. The November deal passed the House with bipartisan support, though 93 Republicans voted against it, with many citing hard-right demands for steeper spending cuts.
Speaker Johnson is already encountering stiff resistance from his far-right flank to the deal he struck with Democrats with ultraconservative House Republicans objecting to the $1.66 trillion agreement Johnson made with Majority Leader Schumer. The backlash from the extreme right underscored anew that Mr. Johnson will most likely have to rely on substantial Democratic support to pass the spending bills underlying the agreement. It also raised questions about the viability of his plan to try to attract Republican backing to spending measures by inserting conservative policy dictates aimed at restricting abortion rights and what Republicans see as “woke” administration policies.
For today, the Senate will begin work on nominations, including John A. Kazen to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas.
The House will convene for the start of the Second Session of the 118th Congress with a recorded vote on the quorum call at 6:30 p.m., Establishing a Quorum in the House of Representatives for the Second Session of the 118th Congress.
