Details of $1.2 trillion spending bill revealed as partial shutdown looms

Congressional aides scrambled Tuesday to craft a bipartisan $1.2 trillion spending agreement to fund the government through September.

President Biden, Republicans and Democrats all support the deal, but have yet to release details and hope Congress can reach a deal in time to avoid a brief partial government shutdown over the weekend. It is unclear whether the proposed actions will be completed.

Still, lawmakers from both parties were already touting what they could get out of the bill, which combines six spending measures into one giant package.

“The final product is one that, despite a historically small majority, achieved many important provisions and victories that allowed us to move in the direction we wanted,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday. Ta.

In a closed-door meeting with Republicans on Tuesday morning, Mr. Johnson said his party would continue to support the party, including funding additional detention beds run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and cutting aid to key United Nations agencies that provide aid to Republicans. He pointed out that the provisions he had hoped for were included. Palestinian.

Democrats secured a long-standing agreement to create 12,000 new special visas for Afghans who worked for the United States in Afghanistan. One-year reauthorization of PEPFAR, the U.S. government’s effort to combat HIV worldwide. Funding for federal child care and education programs would also be increased.

Here’s what we know so far about the bill, which would provide funding to the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, State Department, and health agencies.

Increase funding for immigrant detention beds.

The bill funds about 8,000 more beds than last year’s bill, and House Republicans are touting a victory. Congress funded 34,000 beds by fall 2023, but under the stopgap measure currently funding the department, that number has increased to about 42,000 beds. Negotiators agreed to continue the flow of funds to support the higher figure.

The bill would ban funding to major aid agencies for Palestinians.

The bill would block funding to UNRWA, the UN’s main agency providing aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, until March 2025, leaving the agency with a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars.

This comes after Israel in January accused at least 12 UNRWA officials of taking part in the Hamas-led October 7 attack on southern Israel, backed by the White House and US lawmakers from both major political parties. This is an extension of the suspension of funding that had previously been suspended.

There would be more funding for child care and health research.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, told lawmakers in a closed session that Democrats had won increased spending on federal child care and education programs, including Head Start. She also touted increased funding for cancer and Alzheimer’s research and the federal suicide hotline, according to people familiar with her presentation.

This includes a one-year reauthorization of PEPFAR, which helps fund global efforts to combat the AIDS epidemic. Congress has stalled on reauthorizing the program, part of which expired this fall, amid Republican concerns that some of the health agencies fighting AIDS were also providing abortion services.

Democrats also blocked a Republican effort to cut funding to Title I, a program through which the Education Department helps low-income students and schools.

This includes a series of conservative Republican policy mandates.

House Republicans also won the inclusion of several provisions aimed at addressing conservative cultural grievances. For example, the bill would prohibit U.S. diplomatic facilities from flying anything other than the U.S. flag overhead, and would prevent embassies and other public facilities from flying gay and transgender pride flags. This is an attempt to The bill also includes a federal ban on gas stoves, an idea the Biden administration has said it is not pursuing, but which the Consumer Product Safety Commission said is ripe for future regulatory action. He drew the ire of Republicans by suggesting that there might be.

The Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion, was first included in a spending bill in 1976 and has been updated virtually every year since. But Democrats blocked Republicans from enacting other anti-abortion measures.

This law cuts foreign aid.

Funding levels are in compliance with the debt limit and spending agreement President Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated last year, even as funding for veterans programs continues to increase and military spending increases slightly. However, spending on domestic programs has remained roughly unchanged. .

It led to cuts in other areas, including foreign aid.

In a closed-door meeting, Mr Johnson said Republicans had secured a 6% cut in foreign aid programs. It was not immediately clear which programs would bear the brunt.