WASHINGTON -- The House on Tuesday approved a $1.4 trillion spending package that would stave off a looming government shutdown and fund the federal government through September, passing the bipartisan legislation just a day before lawmakers are set to vote on whether to impeach President Donald Trump.
The legislation also would remove three taxes from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law that was a top legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.
The package passed in two pieces, one focused on GOP national-security priorities including the Pentagon, the other on domestic agencies dear to Democrats such as the Health and Human Services Department. The vote on the national-security package was 280-138. The vote on the domestic agencies was 297-120.
The legislation would add close to $50 billion in new spending, even though the White House and Republicans called for major spending cuts earlier in the year.
All told, the legislation could add more than $500 billion to the deficit over the next decade. The deficit -- or gap between government spending and tax revenue -- is expected to eclipse $1 trillion this year and grow in subsequent years.
The legislation includes a large number of grab-bag provisions big and small, raising the age of tobacco purchases to 21, providing long-sought funding for gun research, boosting funding for the census, and stabilizing pensions for tens of thousands of miners who were on the verge of losing their benefits.
In an eleventh-hour deal, the legislation also extends dozens of tax credits and incentives for biodiesel producers, brewers, distillers and others.
"The list goes on and on," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as he urged support for the legislation when it arrives on the Senate floor later this week.
"There are two timeless truths about the appropriations process in divided government," McConnell added. "First, neither side will ever get what they would consider to be perfect bills. But second, full-year funding definitely beats drifting endlessly" from one stopgap spending bill to another.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget chided Congress for embracing what it termed these "zombie tax extenders" that it said would add close to $500 billion to the debt over the next decade. When the tax cut and spending legislation passed the House on Tuesday, committee president Maya MacGuineas wrote on Twitter, "What a bucket of garbage this bill is."
Congress has mostly passed a series of short-term, stopgap budget bills that piece together weeks or months of spending. The legislation passed Tuesday would provide more than nine months of funding.
Despite Trump's demands for $8.6 billion for his border wall, the issue that caused a 35-day government shutdown last winter, the legislation keeps border-barrier funding at the current level of $1.375 billion. That represented a retreat for the White House, although officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget said the administration retained the flexibility it would need to move money from other accounts if necessary, as it has done in the past.
The spending legislation will now move to the Senate, which must act before midnight on Friday, when existing funding for government agencies expires. Trump has voiced frustration in the past about Congress' habit of jamming huge spending increases into giant must-pass bills on deadline. But administration officials were involved in negotiating the package, and the president is expected to sign it.
"The president is poised to sign it and to keep the government open," said top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.
VARIETY OF PROVISIONS
The legislation is laced with provisions reflecting divided power in Washington. Republicans maintained the status quo on several abortion-related battles and on funding for Trump's border wall. Democrats controlling the House succeeded in winning a 3.1% raise for federal civilian employees and the first installment of funding on gun-violence research after more than two decades of gun lobby opposition.
The core of the spending bill is formed by the 12 annual agency appropriations bills passed by Congress each year. It fills in the details of a bipartisan framework from July that delivered about $100 billion in agency spending increases over the next two years instead of automatic spending cuts that would have sharply slashed the Pentagon and domestic agencies.
The increase in the tobacco purchasing age to 21 also applies to e-cigarettes and vaping devices and gained momentum after McConnell signed on. But anti-smoking activists said the provision didn't go far enough because it failed to ban flavored vaping products popular with teenagers.
"The evidence is clear that flavored e-cigarettes are driving the youth epidemic," said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "As long as flavored e-cigarettes remain available, kids will find ways to get them and this epidemic will continue."
Other add-ons include a variety of provisions sought by business and labor interests and their lobbyists in Washington.
For business, there's a seven-year extension of the charter of the Export-Import Bank, which helps finance transactions benefiting U.S. exporters, as well as a renewal of the government's terrorism-risk insurance program. The financially troubled government flood insurance program would be extended through September, as would several visa programs for both skilled and seasonal workers.
Labor advocates won repeal of the so-called Cadillac tax, a 40% tax on high-cost employer health plans, which was originally intended to curb rapidly growing health care spending. But it disproportionately affected high-end plans won under union contracts, and Democratic labor allies had previously succeeded in temporary repeals.
Democrats in the House won increased funding for early-childhood education and a variety of other domestic programs. They also won higher Medicaid funding for the cash-poor government of Puerto Rico, which is struggling to recover from hurricane devastation and a resulting economic downturn.
While Republicans touted defense increases and Democrats reeled off numerous increases for domestic programs, most of the provisions of the spending bill enjoy bipartisan support, including increases for medical research, combating the opioid epidemic, and child care grants to states.
DEFENSE MEASURE
Meanwhile, the Senate voted Tuesday to send an annual defense policy bill to Trump that combines a $738 billion Pentagon budget blueprint with legislation to provide federal employees with 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
The sweeping 86-8 vote followed easy passage last week by the Democratic-controlled House.
The annual defense measure has passed every year since the Kennedy administration, invariably as a traditionally bipartisan effort. Trump has said he'll sign the bill, which delivers a 3.1% pay raise for Pentagon personnel, the largest in more than a decade.
The compromise between Democrats in the House and the GOP-held Senate broke free after Republicans agreed to accept a Democratic demand -- endorsed by Trump in end-stage negotiations -- for the parental-leave provision. Negotiators also endorsed Trump's call for a new "space force" -- a provision previously backed by the House on a bipartisan basis.
The agreement followed weeks of difficult negotiations. Democrats were forced to drop a provision to block Trump from transferring money from Pentagon accounts to construct a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. They also dropped protections for transgender troops and tougher regulations on toxic chemicals that are found in firefighting foam used at military installations.
"It is safe to say that many have misgivings about one provision or another, but there are so many other positive provisions in the bill that it is a legislative success ... that helps the military and the American people," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.
"It's one of the few authorization bills that does pass year after year. And that's because everyone knows how important it is. It usually doesn't get bogged down in partisan fighting," said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla. "This year, the process of getting to a final conference report was certainly tougher than most. It took a few months of hard-fought negotiations, but the end result is a great bill that we can all be proud to support."
Information for this article was contributed by Erica Werner and Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post; and by Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/18/2019