Congress agrees on how much to spend — but not on how to spend it

With little time to beat a government shutdown deadline, the House and Senate are far apart on the details of funding legislation

The big questions about total spending are settled already: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) reached a $1.66 trillion government funding deal in January, in line with a framework President Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) agreed to last spring. Late last month, negotiators also agreed to allocate spending limits for all 12 appropriations bills, or year-long spending legislation, for the rest of the 2024 fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.

But the House and Senate remain bitterly divided on how to disburse some of that money. The Democratic-controlled Senate largely wrote its spending bills to adhere to Biden and McCarthy’s deal. The Republican-run House wrote its bills planning for steep funding cuts, and the House also included dozens of contentious policy provisions — called “riders” because they ride along in often unrelated legislation.

On top of those provisions, some of the House’s bills would also rework entire federal agencies or programs by slashing funding, essentially enacting broad new policies by snapping shut the federal government’s purse. The total spending for a federal department might be the same, but the bills vary widely on what each chamber would allow the government to do.

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