Congressional leaders came to an agreement on the remaining six funding bills for fiscal year 2024 days before the deadline, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced Tuesday morning. This signals a potential end to Congress’ monthslong back-and-forth on the federal budget.
“House and Senate committees have begun drafting bill text to be prepared for release and consideration by the full House and Senate as soon as possible,” said Johnson on X, formerly known as Twitter.
He said lawmakers also finalized bankrolling the Department of Homeland Security, which proved to be a thorn in the negotiations since this agency is central to tackling the crisis at the southern border.
But the legislative text is not expected to be released before Wednesday, pushing Congress up against the shutdown deadline of Friday, before midnight.
According to The Associated Press, the House will have at least 72 hours to review the text of the package, and the Senate procedure will also take a few days. It’s likely Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will introduce a streamlined process in hopes of passing the half a dozen bills before the deadline.
Of the finalized package, President Joe Biden said in a statement Tuesday morning he “will sign it immediately.” While the White House appeared encouraged by the latest developments, some, like Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee, were critical of the agreement, saying it isn’t acceptable to lawmakers or the American people.
Lee in a Tuesday post said only congressional leaders know what’s in the bill, and even though they haven’t shared the text with anyone, they expect “Congress to pass this still-secret bill.”
“We have reasons to be concerned that this bill will perpetuate a multitrillion-dollar deficit, be laden with corrupting earmarks, and fail to force Biden to secure the border,” he said. Lee also criticized the lack of “opportunity to review, debate, and amend the bill,” as the House and Senate leaders insist “it be passed in exactly the condition in which they present it sometime today or tomorrow.”
Apart from the DHS, this “minibus” bill also funds the Departments of Defense, Financial Services, Labor, Health and Human Services, for State and Foreign Operations and the legislative branch.
The House Freedom Caucus has consistently opposed the two-part spending package, pushing Johnson to make deeper cuts while accusing him of abandoning the priority of passing strict border reform, as the Deseret News previously reported.
In a Monday letter, to GOP representatives, Reps. Bob Good, R-Va., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, urged Republicans to attach “the core elements of H.R. 3, the Secure the Border Act,” which would curb the surge of migrant crossings, prohibit them from voting in the federal elections, and put an end to the Biden administration’s “‘open border’ policies.”
“We ask you to join us in rejecting the appropriations package (or anything similar) slated to be before the House that will directly fund these disastrous policies, and choose instead to stand against this assault on the American people and use the power given to us by our founders,” the letter said.
This package also includes 12,000 Special Immigrant Visas for Afghan nationals who assisted the U.S. military, Punchbowl News reported.
Two weeks ago, Congress passed partial funding, after relying on four stopgap bills in the last year as House Republicans struggled to wield their slim majority and come to an agreement with the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House.
Utah Republican Reps. Celeste Maloy and Blake Moore have sounded alarms on the lack of progress related to the budget for the fiscal year 2025, as Congress remains behind schedule.
It’s safe to say that this “functional dysfunction,” as phrased by The New York Times’ Carl Hulse, has become the norm. Since the enactment of the 1974 Congressional Budget Act, a law that governs the budgeting process, Congress has passed the required budget on time during only four fiscal years: 1977, 1989, 1995 and 1997, according to Pew Research.
In the last 2½ decades, Congress has heavily leaned on continuing resolutions to buy more time before going all in on sprawling omnibus packages, as happened this year.