US Congress leaders reach US$1.59 trillion spending deal as shutdown looms
- Spending cap deal applauded by President Joe Biden as it lessens the chances of a partial government shutdown on January 20
- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, negotiated the deal
The top Democrat and Republican in the US Congress on Sunday agreed on a US$1.59 trillion spending deal, setting up a race for bitterly divided lawmakers to pass the bills that would appropriate the money before the government begins to shut down this month.
Since early last year, House of Representatives and Senate appropriations committees had been unable to agree on the 12 annual bills needed to fund the government for the financial year that began on October 1 because of disagreements over the total amount of money to be spent.
When lawmakers return on Monday from a holiday break, those panels will launch intensive negotiations over how much various agencies, from the Agriculture and Transportation departments to Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, get to spend in the financial year that runs until September 30.
They face a January 19 deadline for the first set of bills to move through Congress and a February 2 deadline for the remainder of them.
There were already some disagreements between the two parties as to what they had agreed to. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement that the top-line figure includes US$886 billion for defence and US$704 billion for non-defence spending. But Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a separate statement, said the non-defence spending figure will be US$772.7 billion.