Dem
51
GOP
49
Absent a deal, part of the government will shut down on Jan. 19 and the rest will shut down Feb. 2. But the leaders of Congress have now reached an agreement to fund the government for FY 2023-24. Getting it passed by Jan. 19 in the face of expected vigorous opposition by the Freedom Caucus is something else, though.
The deal follows the general outline of what Joe Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed on early last year. It does not contain many of the steep cuts the Freedom Caucus wants. One Republican priority did make it in, though: The IRS budget will be cut by $20 billion, making it easier for rich tax cheats to get away with it. Since these are the folks who finance the Republican Party, getting this one was a top priority for the GOP. But in return, they had to concede on a lot of other stuff, especially the social spending the Democrats really care about.
The agreement includes an increase in Pentagon spending to $886 billion. Nondefense spending will be the same as last year, except for a one-time $69 billion extra infusion Biden and McCarthy agreed to as compensation for inflation. The new amount of nondefense spending is $773 billion in total.
In a message to his caucus, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) emphasized the cut to IRS but deemphasized that nondefense spending will actually rise in terms of dollars spent.
Now this has to get through Congress. It should pass the Senate easily, with both Democratic and Republican votes. The House will be trickier. Since most Democrats will vote for it, only a handful of Republican votes will be needed. If House Republicans stick together, they will be able to kill it. If they don't, it will pass. Should that come to pass, the Freedom Caucus will be furious. The big question is whether one of them introduces a motion to vacate the chair—that is, fire Johnson. While that might feel good, they have to consider whether they can find enough votes to elect anyone even more radical than Johnson with even smaller margins than they had last time around. (V)