Senate Passes $1.8 Trillion Tax, Spending Package

The House this morning overwhelmingly approved a $1.15 trillion spending measure, as part of a sweeping, year-end fiscal deal that also includes a package of tax breaks worth more than $620 billion for businesses and low-income workers. He secured the votes of 150 Republicans – a majority of the House GOP conference. GOP leaders hope to produce tax and health care overhaul measures next year, fully expecting vetoes from a Democratic president but savoring the campaign-season opportunity to fire up conservative voters. It was opposed by many healthcare companies, business groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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

Marco Rubio of Florida was the only senator running for president who missed the Senate vote. The president also invited Ryan to join him for a meal at the White House in the new year.

With the votes, lawmakers wrapped up a surprisingly productive, bipartisan burst of late-session legislation.

“This legislation helps our economy, helps our national security, and strikes more blows to a partisan health law that hurts the middle class, ” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor Friday.

“Congress can now move into 2016 with a fresh start”, said House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., whose leadership as the new speaker was tested with the compromise.

Obama called Ryan after the vote, thanking him for “making this work so we didn’t have a shutdown”, the speaker told reporters at his office in the Capitol. “Until we finally repeal the Budget Control Act, they’ll always be looking down the road and seeing that problem”.

Morgan said the fact that Congress could agree on the budget sends a positive signal to businesses here that Washington is not stuck in gridlock.

“The devil’s in the details”.

“If anyone needed more evidence of why the American people are suffering at the hands of their own government, look no further than the budget deal announced by Speaker Ryan”, Trump, the GOP front-runner, said in a statement Thursday.

“This will have an enormous geopolitical impact”, Pittenger said hours after the final vote. “By lifting the domestic crude oil export ban, we are sending a signal to the world that our nation is ready to be a global energy superpower”, he said.

“This is about job growth”. Labor unions opposed the tax on high-priced plans, fearing it would affect its members the most.

In a letter Thursday urging fellow Democrats to support the spending bill, Pelosi wrote, “Personally, I was dismayed by Republicans’ insistence on lifting the oil export ban”.

“They wanted big oil so much that they gave away the store”, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said Friday.

Republicans won increases for the military and an end to a ban on exporting US oil.

“There are so many things in this bill that will be surprising and shocking to the American people”, said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C. “Maybe there is a Santa Claus”. First, because numerous most conservative Republicans would not support the spending bill under nearly any circumstances, Ryan had to depend on Democrats to reach the two hundred and eighteen votes necessary to pass the legislation. Democrats followed Pelosi’s lead and backed the bill by a 166-18 margin.

The outcome of the House vote on the spending measure was not without drama.

“This deal will increase the deficit by billions of dollars, and this should concern anyone concerned about too much spending”, Huelskamp said.

The budget pact is the last major item in a late-session flurry of bipartisanship in Washington, including easy passage of long-stalled legislation funding highway programs and a rewrite of education programs. That meant a blend of compromise and confrontation.

Democrats accepted the oil provision as a trade-off to block other Republican efforts, including an attempt to cut funds to Planned Parenthood and Obamacare.

The measure reverses automatic “sequester” cuts that were set to take effect for most government spending, and will boost funds for the Pentagon and domestic programs, including cancer research and college Pell Grants.