Make wishtv.com your home page

US House passes $1.4T spending bill with border wall funds

WASHINGTON
(AP) — The Democratic-controlled House voted Tuesday to pass a $1.4
trillion government-wide spending package, handing President Donald
Trump a victory on his U.S.-Mexico border fence while giving Democrats
spending increases across a swath of domestic programs.

The
hard-fought legislation also funds a record Pentagon budget and is
serving as a must-pass legislative locomotive to tow an unusually large
haul of unrelated provisions into law, including an expensive repeal of
Obama-era taxes on high-cost health plans, help for retired coal miners,
and an increase from 18 to 21 in nationwide legal age to buy tobacco
products.

The two-bill package, some 2,371 pages long after
additional tax provisions were folded in on Tuesday morning, was
unveiled Monday afternoon and adopted less than 24 hours later as
lawmakers prepared to wrap up reams of unfinished work against a
backdrop of Wednesday’s vote on impeaching President Donald Trump.

The
House first passed a measure funding domestic programs on a 297-120
vote. But one-third of the Democrats defected on a 280-138 vote on the
second bill, which funds the military and the Department of Homeland
Security, mostly because it funds Trump’s border wall project.

The
spending legislation would forestall a government shutdown this weekend
and give Trump steady funding for his U.S.-Mexico border fence, a move
that frustrated Hispanic Democrats and party liberals. The year-end
package is anchored by a $1.4 trillion spending measure that caps a
difficult, months-long battle over spending priorities.

The
mammoth measure made public Monday takes a split-the-differences
approach that’s a product of divided power in Washington, offering
lawmakers of all stripes plenty to vote for — and against. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was a driving force, along with administration
pragmatists such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who negotiated
the summertime budget deal that it implements.

The White House said Tuesday that Trump will sign the measure.

”The president is poised to sign it and to keep the government open,” said top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.

The
bill would also increase the age nationwide for purchasing tobacco
products from 18 to 21, and offers business-friendly provisions on
export financing, flood insurance and immigrant workers.

The
roster of add-ons grew over the weekend to include permanent repeal of a
tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance benefits and a hard-won
provision to finance health care and pension benefits for about 100,000
retired union coal miners threatened by the insolvency of their pension
fund. A tax on medical devices and health insurance plans would also be
repealed permanently.

The deficit tab for the package grew as well
with the addition of $428 billion in tax cuts over 10 years to repeal
the three so-called “Obamacare” taxes, extend expiring tax breaks, and .

The legislation is laced with provisions reflecting divided
power in Washington. Republicans maintained the status quo on several
abortion-related battles and on funding for Trump’s border wall.
Democrats controlling the House succeeded in winning a 3.1 percent raise
for federal civilian employees and the first installment of funding on
gun violence research after more than two decades of gun lobby
opposition.

Late Monday, negotiators unveiled a scaled-back $39
billion package of additional business tax breaks, renewing tax breaks
for craft brewers and distillers, among others. The so-called tax
extenders are a creature of Washington, a heavily lobbied menu of arcane
tax breaks that are typically tailored to narrow, often parochial
interests like renewable energy, capital depreciation rules, and race
horse ownership. But a bigger effort to trade refundable tax credits for
the working poor for fixes to the 2017 GOP tax bill didn’t pan out.

The
sweeping legislation, introduced as two packages for political and
tactical purposes, is part of a major final burst of legislation that’s
passing Congress this week despite bitter partisan divisions and
Wednesday’s likely impeachment of Trump. Thursday promises a vote on a
major rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement, while the
Senate is about to send Trump the annual defense policy bill for the
59th year in a row.

The core of the spending bill is formed by the
12 annual agency appropriations bills passed by Congress each year. It
fills in the details of a bipartisan framework from July that delivered
about $100 billion in agency spending increases over the coming two
years instead of automatic spending cuts that would have sharply slashed
the Pentagon and domestic agencies.

The increase in the tobacco
purchasing age to 21 also applies to e-cigarettes and vaping devices and
gained momentum after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signed on.

Other add-ons include a variety of provisions sought by business and labor interests and their lobbyists in Washington.

For
business, there’s a seven-year extension of the charter of the
Export-Import Bank, which helps finance transactions benefiting U.S.
exporters, as well as a renewal of the government’s terrorism risk
insurance program. The financially troubled government flood insurance
program would be extended through September, as would several visa
programs for both skilled and seasonal workers.

Labor won repeal
of the so-called Cadillac tax, a 40% tax on high-cost employer health
plans, which was originally intended to curb rapidly growing health care
spending. But it disproportionately affected high-end plans won under
union contracts, and Democratic labor allies had previously succeeded in
temporary repeals.

Democrats controlling the House won increased
funding for early childhood education and a variety of other domestic
programs. They also won higher Medicaid funding for the cash-poor
government of Puerto Rico, which is struggling to recover from hurricane
devastation and a resulting economic downturn.

While Republicans
touted defense hikes and Democrats reeled off numerous increases for
domestic programs, most of the provisions of the spending bill enjoy
bipartisan support, including increases for medical research, combating
the opioid epidemic, Head Start, and childcare grants to states.

Democrats
also secured $425 million for states to upgrade their election systems,
and they boosted the U.S. Census budget $1.4 billion above Trump’s
request. They won smaller increases for the Environmental Protection
Agency, renewable energy programs and affordable housing.

“I am so
proud that we are able to do so much good for children and families
across the country and around the world,” said House Appropriations
Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

The outcome in the latest
chapter in the longstanding battle over Trump’s border wall awards
Trump with $1.4 billion for new barriers — equal to last year’s
appropriation — while preserving Trump’s ability to use his budget
powers to tap other accounts for several times that amount. That’s a
blow for liberal opponents of the wall but an acceptable trade-off for
pragmatic-minded Democrats who wanted to gain $27 billion in increases
for domestic programs and avert the threat of simply funding the
government on autopilot.

“Many members of the CHC will vote
against it,” said Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joaquin Castro,
D-Texas. “It’s true that there are a lot of good things and Democratic
victories in the spending agreement. I think everybody appreciates
those. What members of the Hispanic Caucus are concerned with is the
wall money, the high level of detention beds, and most of all with the
ability of the president to transfer money both to wall and to detention
beds in the future.”

The bill also extends a longstanding freeze
on lawmakers’ pay despite behind-the-scenes efforts this spring to
revive a cost of living hike approved years ago but shelved during the
Obama administration.

Because dozens of Democrats oppose the
border wall, Pelosi paired money for the Department of Homeland Security
with the almost $700 billion Pentagon budget, which won more than
enough GOP votes to offset Democratic defections.

The coal miners’
pension provision, opposed by House GOP conservatives like Minority
Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had the backing of Trump and powerful
Senate GOP Leader McConnell in addition to Democrats like Pelosi and
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.