January 8, 2024: What the latest government funding news means—and what comes next
I hope you had a restful and happy holiday season! As Congress returns to Capitol Hill this week, we at the CPC Center will resume our updates around the potential government shutdown(s) looming over the next month. Our previous updates are available here.
Please let us know if you have any questions, and feel free to share these updates far and wide!
What’s been settled when it comes to FY2024 government funding?
This weekend, Senate Majority Leader Schumer and House Speaker Johnson announced an agreement on topline government funding numbers for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024—i.e., how much Congress will allocate for defense and nondefense items. See our table below for comparisons to different scenarios. Numbers are rounded for simplicity.
This deal aligns closely with last year’s Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), including the $69 billion agreed to alongside the statute. Including that $69 billion side deal, the topline numbers for defense and nondefense discretionary spending match the FRA agreement. This topline agreement represents a $26 billion bump for defense spending and a $4 billion cut for nondefense compared to current spending.
The deal is not identical to the FRA: it will speed up IRS funding cuts and rescind $6.1 billion in COVID relief aid. There are also conflicting takes on the IRS provision, with some Republicans claiming that the change amounts to an extra $10 billion cut. However, in setting new toplines that comply with the FRA, the deal puts Congress on the path to avoiding painful sequestration cuts that would have occurred under a full-year continuing resolution (CR). For more on sequestration’s threat, see our last update.
What hasn’t been settled?
12 funding bills. Now that Congress knows what it can spend overall, it can write the 12 individual appropriations bills and determine spending within each. Time for those debates is short, though. The first deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown is in less than two weeks.
Supplemental funding. The President’s requests for emergency funding to deal with domestic and international crises remain unaddressed. Senate negotiators continue to discuss immigration reforms to be paired with funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, but a deal has yet to emerge. Moreover, some Republicans are pushing for immigration changes as part of the regular FY2024 spending bills.
Policy riders. Speaker Johnson promised his colleagues he’ll fight for far-right policy riders the House GOP included in its proposed FY2024 spending bills. These riders concern abortion, LGBTQIA protections, gun violence prevention, and much more. They are especially important to the House Freedom Caucus, which has already panned the latest agreement as a “total failure.” However, the riders are nonstarters with House and Senate Democrats, the White House, and even some Republicans—including in the House, where vulnerable Republicans have balked at the extreme provisions. This adds to Speaker Johnson's already tricky math problem, which brings us to…
How to pass these funding bills. To date, the Senate appropriations process has been overwhelmingly bipartisan. For now, let’s assume that continues and focus on the House. Republicans hold 220 House seats. Majority Leader Steve Scalise will be absent this month to receive cancer treatments, leaving the GOP with 219. On January 21, Rep. Bill Johnson will resign, bringing them to 218—the bare minimum for passing legislation under regular order.
Given the Freedom Caucus’ angry response to this weekend’s deal, it seems safe to assume that at least some of its members will not vote for the “rule” to consider corresponding FY2024 spending bills. Since the minority party typically opposes the rule unanimously, the Speaker’s razor-thin margins make it all but certain that any rule to consider FY2024 spending bills will fail. That means the House will have to consider them under suspension of the rules, which does not allow for amendments and, critically, requires ⅔ of House members’ support to pass. Thus, Speaker Johnson would have to rely heavily on Democratic votes—a ploy that could further enrage the same far-right members who forced out former Speaker McCarthy.
What else to know
Below are helpful resources as you catch up on the latest news. We’ll continue to share updates and analysis as developments emerge.
Deadlines to remember
January 19. As a reminder: funding for some federal agencies will run out on January 19, while others expire two weeks later. January 19 is the deadline to renew the following spending bills:
Agriculture-FDA
Energy-Water
Military Construction-VA
Transportation-HUD
February 2. This second deadline marks the last day to pass the following spending bills:
Commerce-Justice-Science
Defense
Financial Services-General Government
Homeland Security
Interior-Environment
Labor-HHS-Education
Legislative Branch
State-Foreign Operations
April 30. Under last year’s Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), if any part-year continuing resolution (CR) remains in effect past April 30, revised FY2024 spending caps will kick in. For a deeper dive into this deadline and its implications, see Why a “date change CR” isn’t just a “date change.”
Resources to bookmark
Previously, Republicans linked border policy demands to supplemental funding for Ukraine, Israel, and other security priorities. Some House Republicans are now seeking extreme immigration policies in exchange for keeping the government open at all post-January 19 and February 2. Speaker Johnson has not yet echoed their calls. However, given House Republicans’ slim majority, even a few GOP defections could sink a Johnson-endorsed government funding bill if Democrats unanimously opposed it.
To understand the shutdown’s implications, let’s look at recent history. Polling indicates the GOP’s extreme immigration proposals are unpopular. The CPC Center’s analysis of the longest government shutdowns indicates that forcing a shutdown to achieve an unpopular goal is unlikely to succeed in the face of unified opposition, and the party making the unpopular demand shoulders the blame for the shutdown. See our analysis below to learn more.
The Biden Administration, House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member DeLauro, and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray recently released numerous fact sheets to underscore the importance of approving spending bills that comply with the FRA and the consequences should Congress fail to do so. These resources, linked below, explain the FRA, the sequestration threat, and more.
Extreme House Republicans Do Not Want to Follow the Budget Agreement, They Want to Disable Government (Ranking Member DeLauro)
The Bipartisan Budget Agreement, A Tale of Two Sequestration Scenarios (Ranking Member DeLauro)
Full-Year Date-Change Continuing Resolution Would Hurt the American People and Threaten National Security (Ranking Member DeLauro)