Bipartisan deal ends budget impasse
Bitter fights over immigration, deficit still loom ahead
Congress achieved an ambitious two-year budget agreement Friday, but reignited ideological factions on deficit spending and immigration.
WASHINGTON — Congress achieved an ambitious two-year budget agreement Friday, but in doing so reignited ideological factions on deficit spending and immigration that are likely to flare as lawmakers turn to these issues next, ahead of a daunting midterm election season.
The bipartisan agreement dispatched $300 billion in new spending over this year and next for military and nondefense programs, plus $90 billion in disaster aid.
It also ended a nine-hour government shutdown that began when lawmakers failed to meet the midnight deadline, blocked by GOP Sen. Rand Paul, despite an all-night session.
But President Donald Trump, in signing the bill into into law, foreshadowed the bitter fights ahead.
“Without more Republicans in Congress, we were forced to increase spending on things we do not like or want in order to finally, after many years of depletion, take care of our Military,” Trump tweeted. “Sadly, we needed some Dem votes for passage. Must elect more Republicans in 2018 Election!”
Paul, a Kentucky senator and an occasional Trump ally, forced the brief shutdown by using Senate rules to run out the clock before voting could begin. In floor speeches Thursday night, Paul lambasted his fellow Republicans for supporting a bill that will worsen the deficit. He also pleaded his case to Trump in a phone call during the standoff.
The Senate passed the measure 71-28, followed by House approval, 240-186.
Though federal offices were unaffected by the offhours shutdown, it was the second such disruption in less than a month.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., moves next to the difficult issue of immigration, with a procedural vote set for Monday. He has promised a free-wheeling debate in an attempt to develop a legislative compromise on the status of so-called Dreamers, who face deportation as Trump ends the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protected them.
“There’s no secret plan here to try to push this in any direction, and the Senate’s going to work its will,” McConnell said. “I hope that we will end up passing something.”
McConnell was pressured to prioritize the immigration issue after the earlier shutdown in January, when Senate Democrats refused to support a stopgap spending bill until they won a commitment from the GOP leader to address the issue.
Even though court action is temporarily keeping DACA running, Democrats are under pressure to protect the 700,000 immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. Under the program, they are able to live and work in the U.S. without threat of deportation.
Many of the young immigrants and their advocates stayed up late with lawmakers Thursday, occupying the office of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., for hours, and knocking on the doors of Democrats and Republicans as they pushed Congress to stop them from being kicked out of the country.
Pelosi, taking a page from the playbook of filibustering senators, tried to leverage the minority’s role by commandeering the House floor earlier in the week in an effort to push Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to provide the same commitment that McConnell had given.
Ryan, who needed Democratic votes to pass the budget deal, promised to bring a bill forward, but his assurances were too vague to satisfy Democrats. Even so, despite threatening to withhold scores of votes, many Democrats supported the spending deal.
Liberal groups lambasted Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., for caving, but the more conservative members of their caucuses were not as eager to risk being saddled with choosing the fates of the young immigrants over keeping federal offices open, particularly as they prepare to face voters in the fall election.
“Unfortunately, the Dreamers have become pawns in this whole process, ” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.
Lawmakers are struggling to develop a bipartisan solution that would include $25 billion Trump wants for his border wall and other border security measures. It would protect 1.8 million young immigrants, many more than are covered by DACA, but also impose new restrictions on visas for immigrant family members or those from underrepresented countries in the visa lottery program that Trump wants to end.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., said the most Congress may be able to accomplish is a temporary measure to continue the DACA program for another year or more.
Some Democrats dismiss a short-term compromise.
“I very seldom disagree publicly with my friend Lindsey, but that’s a horrible outcome,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who has long partnered with Graham on bipartisan immigration legislation. “We cannot do that. The Dreamers have said, ‘Do not do that to us and our families.’ ”
The White House is set to release Trump’s budget Monday, which is sure to spark the debate over deficits from fiscal conservatives, including Paul and the House Freedom Caucus, which opposed the twoyear budget deal.
The era of $1 trillion annual deficits will soon return, thanks to the combination of the budget deal and the 2017 GOP tax cut plan.
The budget bill Trump signed Friday includes huge spending increases for the military: The Pentagon will get $94 billion more this budget year than last — a 15.5 percent jump. It’s the biggest year-over-year windfall since the budget soared by 26.6 percent, from $345 billion in 2002 to $437 billion the year after, when the nation was fighting in Afghanistan, invading Iraq and expanding national defense after the 9/11 attacks.
The two-year deal provides what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says is needed to pull the military out of a slump in combat readiness.
“I cannot overstate the negative impact to our troops and families’ morale from all this budget uncertainty,” Mattis said just hours before the House and Senate approved the deal.