Congress ended its chaotic year on a surprising note of bipartisan unity and productivity Friday, overwhelmingly approving a massive 2016 tax and spending package and sending it to President Barack Obama, who promptly signed it.
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Among the wins for conservatives were the lifting of a 40-year oil export ban; the permanent extension of several key tax cuts, which help working families and job creators; and an increase in defense spending.
Architects of the deal worked overtime this week cajoling rank-and-file members on both sides into backing the US$1.149 trillion, catch-all bill which came in at more than 2,000 pages.
The legislation increases defense and nondefense spending above the caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act, reflecting a budget deal reached by Obama and congressional leaders earlier this year.
The final House vote was much less suspenseful than Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, predicted it would be on Thursday, when she warned that her party had concerns and could not guarantee the votes needed to put it over the top.
They hammered home the message that while the oil-exports policy rider and lack of financial reinforcement for Puerto Rico were deeply troubling, Democrats should not lose sight of the reality that Republicans in many ways lost at the negotiating table: There were dozens of policy riders Democrats deemed “poison pills” which would also not have survived a Senate filibuster or withstood the president’s signature. A number of conservative members of the Republican majority oppose the measure because they say it spends too much money. But she cited successes in driving away most Republican policy proposals from the measure.
The Senate has given sweeping approval to a year-end budget package that boosts federal agency spending and awards tax cuts to both families and an array of business interests.
After the Senate action, Congress planned to adjourn until January. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted “no”.
The sprawling bipartisan compromise, which also tightens visa requirements, proposes reforms to the International Monetary Fund and lifts a longstanding ban on United States crude oil exports, passed easily by a vote of 316 to 113.
The spending measure includes Republican wins such as a provision prohibiting the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring publicly traded companies to disclose their political contributions. Presidential contender Marco Rubio was absent.
A tax package approved by the House on Thursday was a major victory for corporate lobbyists and Republicans. “Today, the American people can cheer the House and now the Senate for putting the nation’s energy needs ahead of politics”, the American Petroleum Institute president Jack Gerard wrote in a statement when the bill passed. On the omnibus bills considered under Boehner, the share of GOP votes in favor of the bill ranged from 57% (on a FY 2012 measure containing the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-HUD titles) to 88% (on the March 2013 bill funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year).
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And it includes a two-year moratorium on the so-called medical device tax, a provision of Obama’s health care law that angered Republicans and Democrats alike.
