House and Senate leadership agree to top-line spending levels for appropriations bills

House and Senate Leadership have agreed to a topline spending number to write appropriations bills, a key milestone in writing and passing spending bills ahead of the first funding deadline on Jan. 19.

According to a “dear colleague letter” sent to members by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and obtained by the Washington Examiner, the topline number will be the $1.59 trillion number set in the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed last year. This includes $886 billion for defense and $704 billion for non-defense spending.

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During these negotiations, House Republicans received $16 billion in additional spending cuts to “offset the discretionary spending levels,” Johnson said in the letter. A House GOP Leadership aide called the deal the “most favorable budget agreement in a decade,” noting the $16 billion in reduced spending then was in the FRA and that it is $30 billion less than what the Senate was asking.

The letter also states that they worked to minimize the so-called side deals made by both sides during negotiations for the FRA.

“As has been widely reported, a list of extra-statutory adjustments was agreed upon by negotiators last summer. The agreement today achieves key modifications to the June framework that will secure more than $16 billion in additional spending cuts to offset the discretionary spending levels,” the letter says.

The emergency spending set in fiscal year 2023 will be maintained; however, it doesn’t provide for any additional emergency funding, and no “additional no-outlay changes in mandatory programs (CHIMPS), will be included,” the letter states.

“Removing them now could save taxpayers more than $200 billion over the next 10 years,” Johnson said in the letter.

The speaker emphasized that the agreement also included a number of concessions from Democrats, such as an additional $10 billion cut to the Internal Revenue Service mandatory funding, resulting in a $20 million total cut and a $6.1 billion cut “from the Biden’s Administration’s continued COVID-era slush funds.”

Prior to Johnson becoming speaker, hardline conservatives were against this top-line number and wanted the spending agreement to be written to $1.471 trillion, but shortly after Johnson ascended to the speakership, they held a press conference saying the FRA number was fine for them and they would accept it.

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“While these final spending levels will not satisfy everyone, and they do not cut as much spending as many of us would like, this deal does provide us a path to: 1) move the process forward; 2) reprioritize funding within the topline towards conservative objectives, instead of last year’s Schumer-Pelosi omnibus; and 3) fight for the important policy riders included in our House FY24 bills,” Johnson said in his letter.

The race is now on to write and pass the first four appropriations bills that are set to expire on Jan. 19 as part of Johnson’s two-part continuing resolution, with the second batch of bills expiring on Feb. 2.