This archive report was first published on 13 December 2019.
On Thursday, December 12, 2019, a tentative bipartisan agreement was reached on funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, offering a solution to avert a shutdown after weeks of haggling over President Trump's border wall and other matters.
Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York, and Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, who lead the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, described an 'agreement in principle' on $1.37 trillion in federal spending.
According to Ms. Lowey, the agreement would put the vote days before funding is set to lapse on December 20.
The tentative deal would maintain existing levels of funding for President Trump's border wall, devoting $1.375 billion to border barrier construction, and placing no limitations on his ability to transfer funds from other Pentagon accounts.
However, the agreement will not replace the $3.6 billion in military construction funds that the White House directed toward the border wall, according to two people familiar with the tentative deal.
Lawmakers announced the tentative deal in the same alcove just outside the Capitol rotunda where, 10 months ago, after the nation's longest government shutdown, they announced an initial agreement over the president's wall and the remainder of government funding.
Ms. Lowey acknowledged that the compromise would be unlikely to satisfy every member of either party, telling reporters 'there are some people in the Congress, in any group that only want 100 percent of what they want, and life isn't that way.'
