The House Tuesday passed a $1.4 trillion spending pact that would inject federal agencies with $49 billion in extra cash this fiscal year, enact a host of substantial policy changes and avert a repeat of last year's holiday-time government shutdown.
The lower chamber early in the afternoon advanced the first of two year-end funding bundles, passing 297-120 a domestic spending package with money for health, transportation, education and more. The second package, passed 280-138, was a four-bill national security minibus that includes billions of dollars for the military and DHS. Lawmakers pushed through the measure despite opposition from progressives and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who cited funding for the Trump administration’s “immoral“ immigration policies and “unchecked” military spending.
The Senate is set to clear the hefty fiscal 2020 deal, which will also raise the age for tobacco purchases to 21 and permanently repeal three major health taxes, before a government funding deadline on Friday. President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law.
Lawmakers had less than 24 hours to review and vote on the behemoth appropriations agreement, which delivered a major win for industry and lobbyists in policy provisions that rode along to enactment. That includes a year-end bargain on tax extenders struck by congressional tax writers and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the middle of the night and unveiled early Tuesday.
The overall spending deal cements $738 billion in fiscal 2020 funding for the military and $632 billion for non-defense departments.
“We think we did pretty well,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said Monday night, after top appropriators debuted the 2,300-page text of their compromise. “In any appropriations deal, in any standoff, you have to give and take. We didn’t get everything we wanted. The president didn’t get everything he wanted. But that’s the nature of what we do.”
In floor remarks on Tuesday, House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) said the national security package isn’t “the bill I would have written on my own, but I am proud that we have been able to do so much good in this political environment.“
In crafting the long-delayed compromise, congressional leaders sidestepped a fight over financing Trump’s border wall by flat funding construction at $1.4 billion. Leaders kept funding static for a number of hot-button immigration issues, providing cash for a level number of ICE detention beds, for example.
The deal would repeal three key health taxes that were projected to yield about $400 billion in offsets to Obamacare over a decade. It would save retirement benefits for tens of thousands of coal miners and includes long-sought money for research into gun violence, millions for election security grants, billions in added Pentagon cash and a 3.1 percent pay raise for federal civilian employees. Also on tap are billions more than requested by the White House to help carry out the 2020 census and record funding for the Head Start program for at-risk young children.
Democrats and Republicans are both billing the compromise as a win for their parties. Democrats, for example, are touting the $25 million for gun violence research and no new funding for Trump’s southern border wall, rather than honoring his request for $8.6 billion. Budgets for the nation’s two immigration enforcement agencies — Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — are also largely flat-lined.
But Republicans are celebrating the fact that the deal doesn’t hinder Trump from shifting around federal cash for a border barrier, as he has done in trying to siphon more than $6 billion from military construction projects, a Treasury forfeiture fund and Pentagon counterdrug efforts. While the number of immigrants ICE can keep detained at any one time will stay the same, the compromise doesn’t bar the administration from transferring money to increase that detention number if there‘s a surge in incoming undocumented immigrants.
The wall funding also comes with fewer stipulations than before, giving the Trump administration more flexibility to continue building the structure in new areas if Congress keeps spending static next time by resorting to a stopgap spending bill.
Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus had pushed for more immigration-related restrictions, which the White House made clear would sink the president’s support. Advocacy organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigrant Justice Center are now accusing House Democrats of caving following months of negotiations and bitter partisan disputes,
“It is deeply disappointing that members of Congress, including many who position themselves as supporters of immigrant rights and opponents of this administration’s abusive immigration policies, continue to turn a blind eye to ICE and CBP taking money from wherever they choose and redirecting taxpayer dollars toward its anti-immigrant agenda,” said Heidi Altman, policy director for the National Immigrant Justice Center, in a statement.
Conservatives are also decrying the deal as a budget-busting deficit bomb that came together without any transparency.
“Backed into a corner between choosing shutdown versus 'mystery budget,’ many colleagues will choose ‘mystery budget,’” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee Budget and Spending Task Force. “Like ‘mystery meat,’ you don’t want to know what’s in it. Also like ‘mystery meat’ — you can bet at least one ingredient is a whole lot of pork.”
Heritage Action for America said it would closely watch how members voted on the second minibus, which includes the bulk of funding for domestic programs, while praising the national security package.
"President Trump promised last year never to sign another omnibus bill, and Congress promised this summer to pursue a transparent appropriations process and include no poison pills in a final bill,” the conservative policy organization said in a statement.
“While this week's national security appropriations bill is good legislation, the domestic appropriations bill violates Congress' promise and the spirit of the President's promise. The domestic bill is a fiscally irresponsible package filled with problematic policy riders, and members need to vote no.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, urged members to support the two bills.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
"House" - Google News
December 18, 2019 at 02:08AM
https://ift.tt/2S2N9Q8
House swiftly advances behemoth $1.4T spending deal - POLITICO
"House" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2q5ay8k
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "House swiftly advances behemoth $1.4T spending deal - POLITICO"
Post a Comment