House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger (R-TX) released her plans for the FY 2024 spending bills, which include a $60 billion cut to the Labor-HHS-Education subcommittee.  This nearly 30% reduction, which takes spending back to FY 2022 levels, would represent the deepest cut to any subcommittee budget.

Overall spending is set at $1.47 trillion, which is $131 billion below last year. However, Defense is increased by $28.7 billion, Homeland Security is increased by $2 billion, and Military Construction-VA is increased by $1.5 billion, making clear the House majority’s priorities for this year’s spending cycle.  

In announcing her plan and describing why the spending figures do not match the amounts set in the debt ceiling deal, Granger said, “The Fiscal Responsibility Act set a topline spending cap– a ceiling, not a floor – for Fiscal Year 2024 bills.”  

The lower caps will make it extremely difficult to write a Labor-HHS-Education funding bill this year. While always a difficult bill because of the socially sensitive topics it often includes, cutting spending by one-third will make funding major priority programs with bipartisan support even harder. 

Despite the difficult outlook, Granger plans to hold mark ups this summer, and pass all 12 bills before the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1. 

Granger’s announcement of the spending limits comes after members of the Freedom Caucus shut down House floor proceedings last week in protest of the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).  The deal, which passed the House by the Republican majority working with Democrats, was seen by some as a sign of potential bipartisanship from the center. However, the Freedom Caucus retaliated against this notion, pushing back against McCarthy to strengthen the conservative coalition to pass legislation, not cave to Democrats for votes. As the caucus works with McCarthy to renegotiate the “power-sharing” agreement they thought they had with him to win their votes for the speakership, the first concession was to further limit spending below the debt deal caps.