The House moved toward passage Friday of a short-term spending bill to keep the government running ahead of a midnight deadline.
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The short-term spending bill now heads to the desk of President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign the legislation.
The House of Representatives passed a bill that had already obtained the approval of the Senate and which extends until next Wednesday the time available for lawmakers to pass a $1.1 trillion spending plan.
Another possible delay for the omnibus bill might be a self-imposed policy by House Republicans that legislation be made publicly available for three days before voting on it.
But Congress looked set to push up against the new deadline next week as talks on legislation to fund the government through September 2016 dragged on over efforts to attach controversial policy provisions to the spending measure.
Congress has barred the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from funding research that promotes a position on gun control, and the CDC has limited its efforts in the area to compiling data on firearm injuries, rather than studying the effect of gun-control laws. “The Democrats aren’t going to get everything they want in negotiations”, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, told reporters.
If Congress can not pass the funding bill by next Wednesday, it would either have to approve yet another stop-gap funding bill that skirts all of the sticking points or risk pushing Washington into its second agency shutdown since 2013.
“We need to get these countries to meet minimum standards on trafficking, certainly well before we enter into a trade and investment relationship with them”, Levin said.
“Republicans and Democrats in Congress have had ample time to negotiate this agreement”, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.
House Republican leaders said there would be no further roll-call votes until Tuesday, suggesting that an agreement was still a bit out of reach. The bill also would make permanent a moratorium that prevents states from taxing access to the Internet and blocks trade deals from requiring changes to USA immigration laws.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy answers questions on Friday… But the price tag could balloon to $700 billion or more as Democrats seek to make permanent some expiring tax cuts for families with lower incomes, younger children and college students; Republicans were seeking to extend expiring business tax breaks worth many billions.
“I don’t know that everybody is that relaxed, but I think most people have determined that there is not much they can do about these final negotiations”, he said.
“We must insist that we can not have a bill leave the station that still has that ban on research in it”, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said.
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Around 50 tax breaks for individuals and businesses expire annually and Congress goes through a once-a-year ritual of renewing them.
