Speaker Mike Johnson is taking a hard line in negotiations over final spending levels for fiscal 2024, imperiling odds of a deal on appropriations toplines that’s needed in the next week for lawmakers to have any chance of finishing full-year bills by deadlines early next year.
Defense and security-related funding levels are largely locked in at $886.3 billion under the terms of last spring’s debt limit law and backed up by the annual defense authorization bill that’s nearing completion.
But under pressure from House Freedom Caucus-led conservatives, Johnson is seeking to hold nondefense funds below the $772.7 billion ceiling that negotiators agreed to in the debt limit law and associated “side deal” to boost spending through accounting maneuvers.
