Congress Sends $1.8 Trillion Tax And Spending Bill To President Obama
The legislation, which also includes a package of extended tax breaks called ‘tax extenders, ‘ now goes to the White House for President Obama’s signature. “But that’s the nature of legislation and compromise, and I think the system worked”.
While he described the package as a “good win”, Obama acknowledged there are “some things in there that I don’t like”.
The legislation pairs two monumental bills: a $1.14 trillion government-wide spending measure to fund each Cupboard agency by way of next September, & a $680 billion tax package extending dozens of breaks touching all sectors of the economy, making several of them everlasting & tossing the whole value onto the deficit.
The bill, commonly referred to as the omnibus, passed the House 316 to 113 in one of the last votes that chamber’s members took this year.
The 65-33 Senate vote Friday followed overwhelming passage in the House, delivering a rare bipartisan compromise as lawmakers headed out of Washington for the holiday recess.
“Many people had a screen over seeing what is good in the bill because of the oil”, she said, according to Politico. The tax deal makes permanent a number of temporary tax credits – notably the enhanced-child tax credit, earned-income tax credit, and the research and development credit for businesses.
On Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said she would vote in favor of the bill, but said she wasn’t confident she could push it over the finish line with Democratic votes if it needed them.
And in what appeared like a warning to Ryan and his party, Pelosi said, “They have the majority”.
By approving a massive package of tax breaks Thursday, House Republicans – who have made deficit-slashing the holy grail of their majority – just piled on almost $650 billion in red ink.
Republicans were not eager to repeat the fight they picked with Democrats in 2013, when a showdown over the budget resulted in a two-week shutdown of government operations. It awards increases of about 6 per cent, on average, above tight spending caps that were a relic of a 2011 budget and debt deal – and were opposed by both GOP defence hawks and Democrats seeking boosts in domestic spending.
On Presidential Candidate Senator Marco Rubio: He fell down on this vote by not showing up, He should resign from the Senate! Only six Democrats along with Independent Bernie Sanders, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the measure.
Republicans were claiming a win on many fronts as well, including a spending increase for the Pentagon and stricter policies for the Environmental Protection Agency and the IRS. Even so, GOP leaders exhibited little nervousness about the fate of that wide-ranging bill, which included everything from language prodding companies to give cyber threat information to the government to restricting visa-free entry to the U.S.
In exchange for lifting the four-decade ban on exporting crude oil, for instance, Democrats secured measures extending wind and solar tax credits and reauthorizing a conservation fund for three years.
Among other policy shifts, the bill would delay contentious pieces of the 2010 health law, by suspending the excise tax on medical devices for 2016 and 2017 and delaying for two years the so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health insurance.