Ryan tells GOP there’s agreement on tax and spending bill

Eleventh-hour negotiations twisted and turned on the mammoth deal pairing the $1.1 trillion spending legislation with a giant tax bill catering to any number of special interests.

Top Republicans were already looking ahead to next year, saying they agreed to Democrats’ spending levels for 2017 and will expect them to cooperate earlier next year in writing the dozen spending bills that are supposed to be passed each year to fund the government. ‘While not getting everything we wanted, the speaker noted that both packages include many provisions that Republicans have long fought for. “At the end of the day, we are going to get this done”, he said.

Negotiators, as expected, included numerous policy riders in the final agreement, which not only encompasses the 12 annual appropriations bills but also a two-year package of tax deductions commonly known as “tax extenders”.

“In negotiations like this you win some, you lose some”.

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan reacts as he attends a breakfast event in Washington D.C., the United States, Dec. 15, 2015.

A major priority for the GOP and some Democrats was lifting the 40-year-old bar against exporting US crude oil, an upshot of the 1970’s oil shortages that industry supporters consider unneeded with today’s explosion of domestic oil extraction.

“I think this is a healthy process”, Ryan said, adding that he “trusts” the Republican primary voter to elect the best candidate.

There was debate over which vehicle – the omnibus or the tax extender deal – lifting the oil export ban would be in but to help garner more Republican votes, it stayed in the spending deal.

The final package ignored conservative demands for language clamping down on Syrian refugees entering the U.S. Instead it contains changes tightening up the “visa waiver” program that allows visa-free travel to the U.S. for citizens of 38 countries, including France and Belgium, where many of last month’s Paris attackers were from.

There is also language preventing detainees from being transferred from Guantanamo Bay to America.

Two taxes imposed under Obamacare could be repealed, including one on high-priced “Cadillac” tax plans and another on medical device manufacturers. It is possible that rather than accepting any such deals, Congress would settle for a more modest package extending expiring tax reductions for a year or two. I mean it’s the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

The next short-term measure could last until Friday or Saturday, said Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat.

“It forecloses our option of doing real, meaningful tax fairness and simplification, where we could lower the corporate rate and have growth”, Pelosi said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said the White House had been heavily involved in the negotiations.

He said he does not know yet if a majority of Republicans will vote for the measure, as the vote doesn’t come up until Thursday, but the tax bill “is something we are happy about, very proud of, and something we have been striving for, for a long time”.