Congress reaches tentative spending deal – though it may be too late to avert government shutdown

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Congressional leaders are understood to have reached a tentative spending deal to bankroll the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) late on Monday – passing a sticking point that should enable negotiators to process the remaining funding bills and avert a partial government shutdown later this week.

As it stands, funding is set to expire on Saturday morning for the departments of Homeland Security, State, Defense, Labour and Health and Human Services.

On Monday evening, lawmakers stuck a tentative deal – or an agreement in principle – for the DHS, according to NBC News, citing sources familiar with the matter.

While the terms of the deal remain unclear, it now paves the way for the resolution of five bills relating to its sister departments, which were largely settled last week.

However, despite the sign of progress, Congress is still in a race against time to pass the spending measures and avoid a short-term government shutdown.

Six months into the fiscal year, Congress is still only about halfway towards passing spending measures ultimately expected to be worth about $1.65trn.

Lawmakers passed the first tranche of six spending bills in early March, funding about 30 per cent of the US government.

Now, they are focused on the larger second package and, in what has become routine, find themselves sailing close to the deadline for the expiration of federal funding as a result of deep policy divisions between Republicans and Democrats.

The bill to fund the DHS, which is responsible for securing and managing America’s borders, has proven difficult to resolve as the question of illegal immigration at the US’s southern border with Mexico has become a central issue in presidential election year.

The stakes for both sides are immense as the flow of migrants crossing the southern border far outpaces the capacity of the US immigration system to deal with it, with each side of the aisle blaming the other for failing to find an answer to the crisis.

Negotiators in Congress have, however, been moving toward a simple solution: passing a continuing resolution that would mostly extend funding for the DHS, though with some increase on 2023 spending levels.

But one senior Republican aide told The Associated Press that their side had been pushing for more resources for the border than that resolution would have provided.

The White House also eventually rejected the continuing resolution approach but did not make its intentions clear in communications with congressional allies until the “11th hour”, according to the aide, increasing the risk of a short-term shutdown.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to be drawn on timeframes for the negotiations during her press briefing on Monday – though she did emphasise that funding the government is lawmakers’ responsibility, not President Joe Biden’s.

“It is their job to keep the government open,” she said.

On the DHS specifically, she said Mr Biden’s administration had “maximised their operations” and removed more illegal immigrants in the past 10 months than during any year since the 2013 fiscal year.

Ms Jean-Pierre said it was important to continue “that operational pace” and added: “Obviously, we believe DHS needs additional funding. We’ve always said that.”

Even with the possible release of legislative text early this week by the House Appropriations Committee, it is still unclear whether Congress can definitely avoid a partial shutdown, however brief.

House of Representatives rules call for lawmakers to be given 72 hours to review a bill before voting and House Speaker Mike Johnson will then have to bring it forward, with a two-thirds majority required for it to pass.

Most of the “no” votes are expected to come from hard-right Republicans, who have been critical of the overall spending levels as well as the lack of policy mandates sought by some conservatives, such as restricting abortion access, eliminating diversity and inclusion programmes within federal agencies and banning gender-affirming care.

Assuming the bill passes the House, the Senate will then have to act on it and its passage will depend on all senators agreeing on speeding up the process to reach a final vote before its deadline of midnight on Friday.

Such agreements typically require Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to allow for votes on amendments to a bill in return for an expedited final vote.

The package being finalised this week is expected to provide about $886bn for the Pentagon.

Overall, the two spending packages provide around a 3 per cent boost for defence, while keeping non-defence spending roughly in line with the year before.

That is in keeping with an agreement that former speaker Kevin McCarthy worked out with the White House, which restricted spending for two years and suspended the debt ceiling into January 2025 so the federal government could continue paying its bills.

House Republicans have been determined to end the practice of packaging all 12 annual spending bills into one massive bill known as an omnibus.

They have at least succeeded in breaking the spending bills into two seemingly more manageable parts this time around.

Additional reporting by agencies

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