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Mnuchin says White House, Pelosi have deal on top-line budget numbers

by Jordain Carney - 07/18/19 8:56 AM ET

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday that the administration has reached a deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on top-line spending numbers for a two-year budget deal.

“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 during an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

{mosads}Mnuchin’s comment means they’ve worked out a deal on what the overall spending levels will be for defense and nondefense programs, which are used by lawmakers to write government funding bills.

Without such a deal, the government would be set for deep, across-the-board spending cuts in January under a 2011 budget law that would kick back into effect.

The Trump administration and Democrats haven’t agreed on everything yet.

Mnuchin cautioned on Thursday that they hadn’t locked down an overall agreement, and that they needed to work out what level of spending offsets — other spending cuts or revenue raises — that would be included, and other “structural issues.”

“We’re now discussing offsets as well as certain structural issues,” he said, adding that both sides had “agreed there will be offsets.”

Mnuchin’s comment appears to be at odds with anonymous pushback from the administration after Pelosi told reporters she wants a deal by Friday night.

Pelosi’s “new timeline sounds like happy talk from the speaker who has been absent from talks for the last three months and now is trying to create momentum after a bad couple weeks,” a senior administration official told The Washington Post and Politico on Wednesday.

Tags Nancy Pelosi Steven Mnuchin