GOVERNMENT STAYS OPEN:
Obama, Congress extend funding in push to reach deal
Hours shy of a midnight deadline, the House of Representatives passed by voice vote a short-term spending bill to keep the federal government open through Wednesday. The bill went to the White House, and President Barack Obama has signed it.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama signed a stopgap spending bill Friday that will give Congress until the middle of next week to complete a deal on a year-end appropriations package needed to fund the government.
The House passed the measure in a voice vote after minimal debate Friday. The Senate passed the legislation by voice vote Thursday. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said that the funding extension will last through Wednesday.
“We’ve already settled about half of the titles within the committee, but we’ve got to negotiate the rest of the items, and there’s dozens of them,” Rogers said Friday. “Then we’ve got to write the bill, read it, read it out and score it, and get all that done this weekend.”
There is still a chance negotiators will need even more time. Rogers wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Congress would have to pass another short-term spending bill to allow the House and Senate to both complete their work.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has promised to give lawmakers three days to read the text of any final agreement. Once that process is complete, the Senate could need at least two or three additional days to debate and pass a bill.
Talks were likely to stretch at least into the weekend over the environment, Syrian refugees, guns and dozens of other disputes sprinkled across two major bills.
One measure would provide $1.1 trillion to finance government for 2016; the other bill would renew around 50 expiring tax cuts for businesses and individuals that, with additions, could swell to a 10-year price tag of $700 billion or more.
Leaders were hoping Congress would adjourn for the year next week after approving the measures.
Among the riders most opposed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., are attempts to scale back clean air and water regulations, repeal portions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill, ease regulations on for-profit colleges and weaken Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
Pelosi said Friday that House Democrats also oppose a package of tax breaks that is being negotiated. Congress has routinely approved short-term extensions of nearly all of the approximately 50 tax breaks and benefits for businesses and individuals, but Republican leaders are pushing for a deal to make many of the breaks permanent.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Friday that Democrats worry the large package could cost as much as $800 billion, does not go far enough to help low-income families and could undermine Democrats’ leverage in any future attempt at comprehensive tax reform.
“From our perspective on our side in the House of Representatives (the tax extender bill would) substantially exacerbate our deficit (and) will undermine our viability of getting tax reform done in the next session or in the years to come,” Hoyer said.
The latest version of the tax proposal would make permanent popular breaks, such as the research and development tax credit for businesses, charitable breaks for businesses and individuals as well as the Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and American Opportunity Tax Credit for college expenses.
Pelosi insists that she cannot support the bill.
It was unclear if lawmakers would pull off a major tax bill with permanent extensions benefiting both sides or opt for a two-year extension of existing tax breaks.
Members dismissed speculation Friday that the bills could be combined in hopes that supporters of each individual bill would be forced to vote for the entire package.
But aides and members said that there is concern that strategy could risk alienating members on both sides.
“They’ll have enough Republican votes supporting their special interest friends to pass this thing in a second,” Pelosi said Friday. “That’s why I don’t want it joined to the omnibus bill because they don’t want to support the omnibus bill.”
House Ways and Means tax policy subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany, R-La., said he prefers to keep the two bills separate and let people vote based on the issues in each bill.
“I think the vote calculation is going to be different on each one,” Boustany said. “I think as we start to lose Republican riders in the Omnibus we potentially lose Republican votes and maybe start to pick up Democrats.”