Republican and Democrat leaders reach spending deal to fund US government

The top Democrat and Republican in the US Congress on Sunday agreed on a $1.59tn spending deal, setting up a race for bitterly divided lawmakers to pass the bills that would appropriate the money before the government begins to shut down this month.

Since early last year, House of Representatives and Senate appropriations committees had been unable to agree on the 12 annual bills needed to fund the government for the fiscal year that began 1 October because of disagreements over the total amount of money to be spent.

When lawmakers return on Monday from a holiday break, those panels will launch intensive negotiations over how much various agencies, from the agriculture and transportation departments to Homeland Security and health and human services, get to spend in the fiscal year that runs through 30 September.

They face a 19 January deadline for the first set of bills to move through Congress and a 2 February deadline for the remainder of them.

There were already some disagreements between the two parties as to what they had agreed to. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement that the top-line figure includes $886bn for defense and $704bn for non-defense spending. But Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, in a separate statement, said the non-defense spending figure will be $772.7bn.

Last month, Congress authorized $886bn for the Department of Defense this fiscal year, which Democratic president Joe Biden signed into law. Appropriators will also now fill in the details on how that will be parceled out.

The non-defense discretionary funding will “protect key domestic priorities like veterans benefits, healthcare and nutrition assistance” from cuts sought by some Republicans, Schumer and House