Over the weekend, lawmakers in the House and Senate announced that they reached an agreement on spending levels for fiscal year (FY) 2024. The deal comes only 12 days before the stopgap spending bill passed in November to avert a government shutdown is set to expire on Jan. 19.
The deal will allow for the total level of spending previously agreed to in the Fiscal Responsibility Act last May, which suspended the limit on federal debt through January 1, 2025. The deal will set spending levels at $886.3 billion for defense programs and $772.7 billion for nondefense programs.
The deal also includes several cuts to spending, including $6.1 billion in unspent COVID relief funding as well as $10 billion in IRS funding that was previously agreed to in the Inflation Reduction Act.
In a joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said, “The bipartisan topline appropriations agreement clears the way for Congress to act over the next few weeks in order to maintain important funding priorities for the American people and avoid a government shutdown. The framework agreement to proceed will enable the appropriators to address many of the major challenges America faces at home and abroad.”
Next, Congress still needs to set the allocations for each of the 12 government funding bills, set levels for each program, agree on whether there will be policy riders, and then pass the bills, either individually or, more likely, in one or two packages of bills.
While Congress works on the final package, ACTE will continue for the highest possible funding levels for CTE!
