Brushing aside concerns about deepening the budget deficit, USA lawmakers approved $1.8 trillion worth of federal spending and tax breaks on Friday in a rare case of bipartisan action after years of damaging fiscal fights in Congress.
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“I think the system worked” this time, President Barack Obama said during a White House news conference.
Conservatives complained that Republican leaders agreed on the bill’s spending and tax provisions behind closed doors and then rushed the bill through the Senate on Friday morning.
There was disagreement between the Republicans and Democrats about lifting the ban of exporting US crude oil.
“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.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican presidential contender, criticized Republican leaders in an opinion article in Politico that said the bill “effectively forfeits our massive Republican victories of 2014 and cements Obama’s priorities for almost the full remainder of his term”.
“Every battle I’ve had with Congress over the last five years has been uphill, but we keep on surprising you by actually getting some stuff done”, Obama said. The president invited Ryan to dinner at the White House in the new year. Those include long term extensions of wind and solar energy tax credits, as well as the near total absence of destructive riders created to de-fund essential clean air and clean water programs.
Granted, there were a substantial number of Republicans who voted against the final measure, but Ryan did manage to get a majority of the House GOP Caucus behind him and that, joined with all but 22 of the Democrats in the House, gave him an overwhelming bipartisan majority rather than a nail-biting final vote like so many that we’ve seen in the past.
In a media release after the vote, Democratic Representative Dave Loebsack said, “By passing this bill, Congress has ended the constant threat of a Republican government shutdown that the nation has been facing”.
Republicans pushed a year-end tax-cut compromise toward House passage Thursday as Congress prepared to finish 2015 with a flurry of accomplishment and await the partisan collisions sure to dominate the coming election year. It also failed to provide assistance for debt-crippled Puerto Rico, which left top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi fuming although she ultimately backed the deal. Marco Rubio of Florida did not show as much as vote.
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. Ryan has praised the spending measure as a bipartisan compromise. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, said on the Senate floor Thursday that he planned to oppose the bill because of the amount it would add to the federal deficit.
To ensure passage, Ryan separated the bills into the tax-breaks package that Republicans overwhelmingly supported, and the spending bill that had more Democratic backing – sprinkling different priorities in each one to build the largest margins of support.
New York’s elected officials applauded the inclusion of the Zadroga Act, which extended federal health monitoring and treatment to September 11 first responders through 2090.
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“Although there were some good things in the bill, like lifting the crude oil export ban, one of the reasons I voted against it was that it continues Obamacare and gives a $30 billion tax break that greatly benefits groups that forced Obamacare on the rest of us”, Cassidy said.
