Senate, Trump celebrate bipartisan budget deal

WASHINGTON — Senate leaders brokered a long-elusive budget agreement Wednesday that would give more money to the Pentagon and domestic programs.

The measure was a win for allies of the Pentagon and for those seeking more for infrastructure projects and combating opioid abuse. But it represented a bitter defeat for many hardline Democrats who sought to use the party’s leverage over the military budget to get amnesty for illegal immigrant “Dreamers.” The deal does not address immigration.

Senate leaders hope to approve the measure Thursday and send it to the House for a confirming vote before the government begins to shut down Thursday at midnight. But hurdles remain to avert the second shutdown in a month.

While Senate Democrats celebrated the moment of rare bipartisanship — Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a “genuine breakthrough” — activists blasted them for leaving immigrants in legislative limbo. Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California, herself a key architect of the budget plan, announced her opposition Wednesday morning and mounted a daylong filibuster on the House floor, trying to force GOP leaders in the House to promise a later vote on legislation to protect the illegal immigrants.

“Let Congress work its will,” Pelosi said, before holding the floor for more than eight hours without a break. “What are you afraid of?” The White House backed the deal. Trump himself tweeted that the agreement “is so important for our great Military,” and he urged both Republicans and Democrats to support it.

But the plan faced criticism from deficit hawks in his own party.

“It’s too much,” said Rep. Scott Per- ry, R-Pa., a fiscal hawk.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., however, backed the agreement and was hoping to cobble together a coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans to push it through.

Despite the 77-year-old Pelosi’s public talkathon, she was not pressuring the party’s rank-and-file to oppose the measure, Democrats said. T

he deal contains $90 billion in disaster aid for Florida and Texas. Some other veteran Democrats — some of whom said holding the budget deal hostage to action on illegal immigrants had already proven to be a failed strategy — appeared more likely to support the agreement than junior hardliners elected in recent years.

The budget agreement would give both the Pentagon and domestic agencies relief from a budget freeze that lawmakers say threatens military

readiness and training as well as domestic priorities such as combating opioid abuse.

and repairing the troubled health care system for veterans.

The core of the agreement would shatter tight “caps” on defense and domestic programs funded by Congress each year. They are a hangover from a failed 2011 budget agreement and have led to military readiness problems and caused hardship at domestic agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the IRS.

The agreement would give the Pentagon an $80 billion increase for the current budget year for core defense programs, a 14 percent increase over current limits and $26 billion more than Trump’s budget request. Nondefense programs would receive about $60 billion over current levels. Those figures would be slightly increased for the 2019 budget year beginning Oct. 1.

“For the first time in years, our armed forces will have more of the resources they need to keep America safe,” said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “It will help us serve the veterans who have bravely served us. And it will ensure funding for important efforts such as disaster relief, infrastructure and building on our work to fight opioid abuse and drug addiction.”

The Senate agreement contains almost $90 billion in overdue disaster aid for hurricane-slammed Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. That would bring the total appropriated for disaster aid in the wake of last year’s disastrous hurricane season to almost $140 billion.

The agreement would increase the government’s borrowing cap to prevent a first-ever default on U.S. obligations that looms in just a few weeks. The debt limit would be suspended through March of 2019, Sanders said, putting the next vote on it safely past this year’s midterm elections.

Pelosi said the House should focus on immigration legislation and noted that Senate Republicans have slated a debate on the politically freighted subject starting next week.