Bipartisan deal to avert US shutdown
washington — Senate leaders announced a bipartisan two-year budget agreement that would provide nearly $300 billion in additional funding, a crucial step toward averting a Friday government shutdown and ending a months-long impasse on spending priorities.
The plan would suspend the federal debt ceiling until March 1, 2019, and would provide almost $90 billion in hurricane and wildfire disaster aid. A Senate vote was expected Thursday, followed by the House. The dollar rose on news about the deal, as did yields on the 10-year US Treasury.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called the plan a “significant agreement” among Senate and House leaders that gives both parties what they want. It includes a long-sought defence spending boost that was the top goal of Republicans who lead both chambers in Congress and gives more funding for domestic programmes sought by Democrats.
President Donald Trump gave his blessing to the agreement, saying on Twitter that it will give the military what it needs. “Republicans and Democrats must support our troops and support this Bill!” he wrote in a tweet.
Defence spending would increase by $80 billion over current law in this fiscal year and $85 billion in the one that begins on October 1. Non-defence spending would rise by $63 billion this year and $68 billion next year.
Secretary of Defence James Mattis told reporters at the White House that he’s optimistic that Congress will give the Pentagon the funding it needs. Lawmakers intend to combine the two-year spending deal with a short-term measure to keep the government operating when current funding runs out at the end of the day Thursday. Like the House-passed short-term bill, the Senate measure would fund the government through March 23 while lawmakers fill in the details on longer-term spending. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, speaking on the floor after McConnell, said the agreement was completed “without a great deal of help from the White House”. He added: “I believe we have reached a budget deal that neither side loves but both sides can be proud of.”
One complication is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who set a record going back to at least 1909 by speaking continuously while standing on the House floor for more than eight hours on Wednesday. She said she won’t back the spending plan without a commitment from Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to allow an open debate on bipartisan immigration legislation, similar to a promise made by McConnell.
However, she sidestepped questions about whether she’s actively lobbying Democrats to vote en masse against the deal, saying she doesn’t know how many members of the party would reject it.