Congressional leaders announced that they have reached a spending deal to avoid a government shutdown.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) revealed that $866 billion will be provided for defense and $704 billion for nondefense.
“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,” Johnson wrote in a letter.
Thirty billion dollars will be reduced from the Senate’s spending plans, Johnson noted.
Spending cuts were directed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and COVID-era funds.
“In summary, the concessions we achieved will include an additional $10 billion in cuts to the IRS mandatory funding (for a total of $20 billion), which was a key part of the Democrats’ “Inflation Reduction Act,” Johnson explained. “In addition, we will cut $6.1 billion from the Biden’s Administration’s continued COVID-era slush funds, which we achieved despite fierce opposition from the White House.”
“The result is real savings to American taxpayers and real reductions in the federal bureaucracy,” he wrote.
The House Freedom Caucus criticized the spending deal, calling it a “total failure.”
“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,” the group wrote on X.
“This is total failure.”
