Congressional leaders on Sunday unveiled the long-awaited bipartisan bills to fund parts of the government for the rest of fiscal year 2024, setting off a sprint to avert the looming shutdown threat in less than a week. The six spending bills fund a slew of agencies until early fall, including the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Justice, Commerce and Energy.
The Hill reports the 1,050-page package includes more than $450 billion in funding for fiscal year 2024. Lawmakers have until Friday to pass the legislation or risk a partial government shutdown under a stopgap plan President Biden signed into law this week to buy more time for spending talks. The Sunday rollout comes as Congress is behind in finishing up its funding work for fiscal 2024, which began five months ago. said Sunday that both sides were able to reach a funding compromise that will keep “the government open without cuts or poison pill riders.”
However, Republicans are already claiming wins, touting cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the funding package. The GOP-led House and Democrat-led Senate entered negotiations with vastly different bills this year, as House Republicans pursued much more partisan measures with steep cuts to government funding that went beyond budget caps agreed to as part of the debt limit deal brokered last year.
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