The Trump administration and House leaders are reportedly close to agreement on a two-year budget deal that also raises the debt ceiling.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) separately confirmed that they’ve agreed on the top-line spending levels for defense and domestic programs.
With government funding running out at the end of September, both the White House and congressional Democrats are eager to raise the budget caps that will cause strict spending cuts in the fall. In early 2018, President Donald Trump compromised on a deal with Democrats to raise the caps in 2018 and 2019 by nearly $300 billion but the caps in place for 2020 and 2021 remain at the levels enacted in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Unless Congress acts, sequester would result in $71 billion in defense spending cuts and $55 billion in domestic spending cuts. Mnuchin is also adamant that the debt ceiling must be raised by early September to ensure that Treasury can pay the government’s bills.
“The good news is we’ve reached an agreement between the administration, the House and the Senate on top-line numbers, for both year one and year two,” Mnuchin said on CNBC this morning.
Pelosi said she wants a deal done by the end of the week in order to have enough time to pass legislation before Congress leaves for the August recess.
Mnuchin said he’s optimistic about Trump’s support for the budget deal but other administration officials have signaled that there are still unresolved issues around offsets for various spending increases. Mnuchin said today that both sides have “agreed there will be offsets.”
This article was provided to OSAE by the Power of A and ASAE's Inroads.