Congress makes progress on spending deal to avert government shutdown

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Congressional leaders have reached a spending deal that could prevent a partial government shutdown later this month.

  Our congressional correspondent, Lisa Desjardins, joins us now to break down the deal.

  So, Lisa, they — lawmakers, they reached an agreement on the overall spending level for the rest of the year. What's in the deal?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Right. This is called the top line.

  And it's important to understand what we're talking about here. This is the funding that Congress controls. It's called the discretionary funding. Really, this is the business of government, the size of government. And this has been such a painstaking debate, especially for Republicans who have wanted to cut the size of government.

  This is one reason Kevin McCarthy lost his job over these levels. So let's look at what the deal was between Leader Schumer in the Senate and new Speaker Mike Johnson in the House. They agreed to these spending levels, about $1.7 trillion.

  Now, here's what we're talking about. More of that goes to defense, slightly more, about $890 billion, than to non-defense, $772 billion, about that. But what does that mean? Let's compare it to last year's levels, almost exactly the same.

  And that is significant, I will point out, and our viewers probably noticed, a little bit of an increase there for defense, about 4 percent of an increase there. But it's significant, because this is kind of stopping the growth of government in a way we haven't seen in a long time.

  However, it isn't cutting back in the way that House conservatives want to see either. So this is a risk either way. They have to try and now figure out the details of which agencies get what percent of that money.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So, given that dynamic, does this mean shutdown avoided, or it's still too early to tell?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  It's definitely too early to tell.

  And I think there are still some troubling signs. The biggest one is just the timing. Let's look at the calendar and what they have to navigate here. The first government shutdown deadline is January 19. That math's not hard. That's in just 11 or so days. That's the deadline for these kinds of agencies, Ag, Energy, Housing.

  Then, on February 2, every other agency funding must be extended, or else we will see shutdowns there. What Congress has to do before those deadlines is — what House Republicans have said they intend to do is write 12 different appropriations bills to get them through both chambers.

  By the way, that is something that has not happened in Congress, you know, this century. They want to do that, called regular order, but, right now, it's just — it's hard to imagine how they're able to do that in the next two weeks. Could there be a short-term bill? Yes, always, there could be.

  But House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he does not want to do this. So we're at that point again, where this will test a House speaker. Conservatives — I talked to Chip Roy earlier today. He said he has major problems with this deal.

  But how about Democratic Leader Schumer in the Senate? Here's what he had to say today.

• Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

  Both parties reached this agreement without, without resorting to the painful and draconian cuts that the hard right, particularly those in the Freedom Caucus, clamored for.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes, but again, that hard right, however you want to describe them, Freedom Caucus really will be an issue in terms of getting the votes and the pressure to try and figure out this deal and getting it through quickly.

  I think that first January 19 deadline is going to be hard to make.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And then adding to all of this, there are ongoing talks about border security and Ukraine funding. Where does all of that stand?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  So much important news.

  Today, we saw that again. The senators trying to negotiate a border deal met in person. But just in the past few minutes, one of the key senators, conservative Jim — James Lankford of Oklahoma came out saying he does not think they will be able to write a deal this week. Could we get an outline? Maybe.

  But I talked to another Senator, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, today about it. It's clear it's just so complicated. While they have closed out some portions of it, they still are having problems on things like parole. What does that mean? Well, it also ties up Ukraine funding. It's a real problem as we get into January.

  And some in the House say they won't pass any spending deal, what we were just talking about, until there's a border deal. So, we're at a point that is really difficult to see a way forward. And it couldn't just — might just be rocky, but really difficult for the country the next few weeks ahead.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Lisa Desjardins tracking it all, thanks so much.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You're welcome.