House Republicans Nearing Budget Agreement for Government Funding and DHS Spending Measure

TFD – Dive into the ongoing negotiations for a budget agreement and DHS spending measure led by House Republicans.

According to two familiar sources, negotiations are nearing a budget agreement to finance the government through the remainder of the fiscal year. However, lawmakers still have obstacles to overcome in order to approve legislation and prevent important agencies from shutting down this weekend.

A GOP leadership aide said that congressional negotiators had struck a consensus on funding for the Department of Homeland Security on Monday. In the midst of the 2024 campaign, where border security has taken center stage, funding for the agency has emerged as a significant challenge.

Even while there is broad consensus on many of the bill’s provisions as of Monday night, Aides cautions that writing the legislation still needs to be done. That procedure could take a while.

The text is anticipated to be made available within the following several days.

This implies that legislators are still in a severe rush to approve the bill before the Friday night deadline. The three-day rule, which House Republicans are using, gives legislators many days to study the text before casting a vote. The speaker will also have to deal with a significant amount of blowback from Mike Johnson’s right flank.

House Republicans have already been urged by forty-three members of the House Freedom Caucus to reject any agreement that does not include important border protections.

Congress eventually enacted a package of six bills in early March to finance a number of government departments for the remainder of the fiscal year, but the work is far from done. For months, stopgap laws were used to prevent shutdowns at the last minute.

By Friday, March 22, at the end of the business day, a number of crucial government agencies still require funding, including the State, Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Legislative branch.

On October 1, 2023, more than five months ago, the current fiscal year got underway. Since then, short-term extensions have resulted in a number of funding deadlines that have presented lawmakers with fiscal cliffs.

There are several difficulties in store.

The leadership of the House GOP has to give its members seventy-two hours to evaluate the text of the bill. That implies that once the Friday deadline has already passed, lawmakers may continue working into the weekend to pass the laws. Then, it would need consent of all 100 senators to quickly schedule a vote – something that can be extremely difficult, especially over funding legislation.

If money is not authorized by the deadline, government functions would stop; however, if a shutdown is limited to the weekend, the harm would be negligible.

Negotiators were ready to proceed over the weekend with a one-year stopgap legislation to finance DHS, according to two people familiar with the discussions. However, the White House intervened late in an attempt to push for a full-year budget plan. According to the sources, this has caused the talks to stall.

It is always one of the hardest bills to pass, especially the DHS spending measure. Aides claim that funding for many agencies, such as State, Treasury, Education and Labor, HHS, and Defense, is mainly stopped off.

Johnson faces resistance from his right flank and an incredibly slim majority in the House. Hardline conservatives are upset about how Speaker Paul Ryan handled the federal spending dispute; earlier this month, the speaker had to rely on votes from both Republicans and Democrats to pass a six-bill funding agreement.

President Joe Biden signed the package into law, providing funding for the Food and Drug Administration, military construction, and other federal programs in addition to the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Interior, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development.

Following the removal of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his leadership position by conservatives, Johnson was elected speaker of the House last year. However, there were concerns that Johnson may face a similar danger to his speakership due to opposition from the far-right portion of his conference.

Many Republicans do not want to witness the extraordinary and historic removal of McCarthy lead House Republicans into a period of weeks-long upheaval as they battled to choose a replacement.

More developments have been added to this story and headline.