What’s in budget deal Congress just passed? A basket of goodies Climate change tax credits
WASHINGTON – Congress passed a $400 billion budget deal Friday that busted through spending caps and suspended the debt limit for a year. It included money for disaster relief, opioid treatment and veterans, as well as a six-week spending package to keep the lights on at government agencies while a yearlong spending bill gets drafted.
The whopping 652-page document has plenty of additional provisions tucked in. Here are a few:
Some tax breaks to continue
A number of tax breaks that expired at the end of 2016 will be renewed retroactively for 2017 so that people can claim them on this year’s tax returns. Fiscal conservatives didn’t like the extension of the breaks because they said the point of the tax overhaul bill passed late last year was to do away with temporary, targeted tax breaks. The budget deal included them anyway.
“There should now be no need to extend any expiring tax provision. If a provision wasn’t extended in the tax reform bill, Congress has already determined that provision’s long-term fate,” Taxpayers for Common Sense, an advocacy group, said in a statement.
Some of the folks who will see tax benefits include owners of racehorses and motor sport entertainment complexes and certain types of energy production facilities.
A Kentucky college benefits
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., helped draft the budget agreement, and his homestate school will enjoy the benefits. The bill includes a provision to help a small school called Berea College, which does not charge tuition. The provision exempts schools that don’t charge tuition from having their endowments taxed.
The bill includes language extending and expanding a tax credit to reward companies for practicing “carbon capture and storage,” an expensive process supporters say can extract up to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions generated from the use of fossil fuels in producing electricity and other industrial processes. The measure had bipartisan support: Republicans like that the process helps industry extract hard-to-reach oil and natural gas deposits, and Democrats like it because of its potential to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.
Repeal of health panel
A controversial panel created by the Affordable Care Act to control Medicare costs was eliminated. The Independent Payment Advisory Board had not been operating because Medicare spending hadn’t reached levels that would trigger the advisory group to make recommendations to Congress on how to cut costs. But it has been a political target since former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin dubbed it a “death panel.”
Cut in drug costs for seniors
The bill accelerates changes made in the Affordable Care Act to reduce the amount of out-of-pocket costs a senior has to pay for drug coverage. The “doughnut hole” in Medicare’s drug benefit will be eliminated one year earlier than it would have been under the ACA.