House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday he will not withdraw from a controversial spending deal to avoid a government shutdown that is opposed by several members of his conference.
Johnson, on Sunday, announced a deal with other congressional party leaders on a spending package of $1.59 trillion for Fiscal Year 2024, which has been attacked by members of the House Freedom Caucus as insufficiently conservative. After negotiations with dissident members, Johnson announced Friday that he would stand by the deal, even as members have threatened to remove him from office over the matter.
“Our topline agreement remains,” Johnson told the press, adding that “we are getting our next steps together, and we are working toward a robust appropriations process. So stay tuned for all that.” His announcement comes after reports that he was considering withdrawing from the deal at the behest of dissident Republicans, who defected on Wednesday to oppose a GOP-backed rules package governing the passage of the week’s legislation, leading to its defeat.
On Thursday, Johnson did not deny that he was reconsidering the deal. “I’ve made no commitments,” he said after several meetings with House Republican dissidents in the speaker’s suite, which continued on the House floor, as observed by the Daily Caller News Foundation from the chamber’s gallery.
Johnson’s agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer follows a deal negotiated in May 2023 between President Joe Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy on budgetary levels for 2024 and 2025. That deal, embodied in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, was opposed by 71 House Republicans, some of whom continue to object to its use for FY 2024 and are demanding more spending cuts.
“Democrats will not support including poison pill policy changes in any of the twelve appropriations bills,” said Schumer regarding the contents of the deal, whose legislative text has not yet been released. “Not a nickel was cut,” he later noted regarding its contents.
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