Speaker Paul Ryan has told House Republicans a deal has been reached on a year-end tax and spending bill.
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Ryan has pledged to follow House rules, which state that bills can only be brought to the floor three days after they are introduced – a way to give members enough time to read them.
House Republicans said a vote on the package is expected by Thursday, sending it to the Senate.
Lawmakers compromised on the issue of allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S. The spending package doesn’t include a controversial House-passed bill that would bar the refugees from entering until the U.S. implements a tough new vetting system to ensure they aren’t terrorists.
-Big Oil. The oil industry seems likely to score a huge coup with the lifting of the four-decade ban on exporting US crude oil, which is likely to pad industry revenues by several billion dollars a year, depending on oil prices.
The deal also includes a five-year extension of tax breaks for wind and solar energy producers, which is seen as win for Democrats.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., a leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus that helped bring down former speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he was still uncertain how many conservatives would vote for the package. “That confusion ends now, and our economy will be stronger for it”, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said in a statement upon the bill’s release.
House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. meets with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015, as lawmakers work to complete end-of-the-year business and pass a comprehensive spending bill.
Democrats and President Barack Obama anxious the proposed screening measures would effectively slow to a halt the president’s plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees this fiscal year, a small portion of the number of Syrians fleeing war in that country.
“Democrats won some; they lost some”, he said. The House and Senate will likely vote on the measures later this week, but will first pass a continuing resolution keeping the government funded through December 22.
The spending bill is expected to be paired with legislation that would extend about $750 billion in expiring tax breaks for businesses and individuals.
“This compromise isn’t flawless, but it’s good”, said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Throughout Tuesday, major components of the spending legislation appeared to be falling into place, including a tentative agreement to alter major provisions of the Affordable Care Act, delaying a planned tax on high-cost health insurance plans and suspending a tax on medical devices for two years.
“How can families and local businesses count on tax relief each year as long as Congress can’t decide what’s permanent and what’s not?”
Ryan briefed House Republicans on the bipartisan agreement, ticking through the items the GOP considered significant policy accomplishments, including lifting the oil export ban and other tax breaks that the party had been fighting to enact for years, according to multiple lawmakers.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., raised objections to the tax-extension measure even though he said it would make permanent an expansion of the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit – both priorities for Democrats. McConnell said such a deal would make a larger tax reform package easier to achieve next year, while satisfying business goals, including extending a research and development tax credit and a popular deduction for equipment purchases. The price tag could mushroom to several hundred billion dollars or more over a decade, which would further add to federal deficits. A tax on health insurance may also get suspended.
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Taxes imposed to help pay for Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul, which Republicans have long sought to unravel, were curbed – to the applause of the GOP and many Democrats.
