WASHINGTON: US lawmakers on Sunday announced an agreement on roughly $1.6 trillion federal budget for the fiscal year 2024.
As per western media reports the development marks a major step to avoid a looming government shutdown in a presidential election year.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leaders in Congress announced the agreement after weeks of discussions.
President Joe Biden, applauding the decision said that the deal moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown.
However, the time is short for the rival parties in Congress to pass the legislation before a January 19 deadline, when parts of the federal government would run out of cash..
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The agreement, drafted by the then House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House, reportedly includes an increase in Pentagon spending to $886.3 billion.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries in a joint statement said that by getting the $772.7 billion for non-defense discretionary funding, the country can protect key domestic priorities like, health care, veteran benefits and nutrition assistance.
They said the agreement paves the way for Congress to act over the next few weeks in order to keep important funding priorities for the American people and avert a government shutdown.
Agreement rejects deep cuts: Biden
Biden in his statement says the agreement rejects deep cuts to welfare programs and shows a path to passing full-year funding bills for the American people.
The agreement is likely to anger the far-right group of Johnson’s Republican House caucus, many of whom have stressed for fiscal belt-tightening.
It’s even worse than we thought.
Don’t believe the spin. Once you break through typical Washington math, the true total programmatic spending level is $1.658 trillion — not $1.59 trillion.
This is total failure. https://t.co/QBok5lpa6E
— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) January 7, 2024
The conservative House Freedom Caucus said in a statement on X, the former Twitter said “don’t believe the spin.”
