House OKs $1.1 trillion budget deal, sends legislation to Senate

Obama welcomed the measure, a senior U.S. official said.

While he described the package as a “good win”, Obama acknowledged there are “some things in there that I don’t like”.

The House vote bundled with the spending measure a tax bill that passed on Thursday.

Obama gave Ryan’s efforts a nod during a White House news conference.

On Capitol Hill, it was a harmonious conclusion to a year that was driven largely by tea party lawmakers pushing for showdowns with Obama on immigration, Planned Parenthood and Obamacare.

Republicans were evenly split with 27 of them voting in favor and 26 against the bill.

Congress on Friday sent President Barack Obama a bipartisan but deficit draining year-end budget package that boosts USA government spending while removing any threat of a government shutdown or a default on debt obligations.

“The product we’re delivering this year is very bad”, groused GOP Rep. Dave Brat of Virginia. House GOP members had opposed by a wide margin earlier legislation that established the framework for the budget package. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who had been criticized by campaign rivals for missing votes, was absent from Congress on Friday.

White House hopefuls senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul voted against the package, while fellow Republican presidential candidate Senator Lindsey Graham supported it.

It was a win for new House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who managed to keep fiscal hawks in his Republican caucus under control during weeks of talks and avoid the kind of infighting that plagued his predecessor, John Boehner.

The measure received big bipartisan majorities in both House and Senate. And they blocked numerous policy “riders” Republicans sought on the environment and other issues.

It includes $1.14 trillion for expenses over the next 10 months and $680 billion in tax cuts for business investment, low-income working families and more, Efe news agency reported.

In exchange for ending the oil export ban, Democrats won extensions of tax breaks for alternative power sources such as solar and wind energy.

Congress approved and President Obama signed into law another Continuing Resolution (CR) on December 16 that will extend government funding through December 22 and give Congress enough time to complete action on both bills. Nondefense programs would receive $543 billion.

Also crammed into the two bills are provisions trimming some of the taxes that help finance Obama’s prized 2010 health care overhaul, including two-year suspension of a tax on medical devices and, in a victory for unions, a two-year postponement of a “Cadillac tax” on higher-cost insurance policies.

Blocks funds for “risk corridors” in which the government provides relief to health insurers with deep losses.

By getting embedded within the omnibus legislation, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) is more likely to pass as-is and without any challenges, because action against it would threaten the entire budget deal.

Reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which devotes fees from offshore oil and gas production to create national parks, purchase buffers zones around rivers and lakes, and provide matching grants for state and local projects.