The agreement House Speaker Johnson cut with Democrats over the weekend would actually raise spending compared to what would happen under the status quo.
Back in May, those changes meant that "Spending on defense programs - which Republicans generally support - will decrease, while spending on non-defense programs will actually increase when compared to the underlying spending targets laid out in the debt limit bill".
I argued in May that Republican "Defense hawks" would push for an omnibus to avoid those automatic cuts, and Democrats would likewise have leverage to demand a bloated omnibus spending bill, because doing nothing would otherwise result in two outcomes they largely support - lower defense spending and higher non-defense spending.
The end result of the CBO re-estimate? If the debt deal's spending caps kick in, non-defense spending would decrease significantly, while defense spending would get held largely flat.
An increase in defense spending means that overall spending will still trend higher than the bloated budget passed late in 2022 under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. More importantly, relative to the caps that are in current law and will take effect in a few months should Congress not pass 12 appropriations bills, spending will increase, and increase substantially.
The difference between the yellow line, overall spending levels if the caps in May's debt deal take effect, and the red line in this weekend's agreement amounts to the additional spending Johnson agreed to.
Johnson had every bit of leverage to demand that the spending reductions already scheduled to take place actually go into effect - or force the Democrats into a "Shutdown showdown" over their desire to spend, spend, spend.
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