CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Dec. 15, 2011 – 11:17 p.m.
Deal Reached on Spending Bill
By Kerry Young, CQ Staff
Congress may clear a final fiscal 2012 spending package as early as Friday, narrowly making a pressing deadline to replenish appropriations for most of the federal government.
Appropriators were on track Thursday night to complete a nine-bill “megabus” that would provide $915 billion to cover a wide range of government activities, including defense, education, environmental regulation, medical research and water projects.
The bipartisan compromise measure, which has been hammered out over the past month, is embodied in a conference agreement on the fiscal 2012 Military Construction-Veterans Affairs bill (
The agreement had largely been settled by Dec. 12. But concerns on the part of Democrats that Republicans might not cut a deal on extending an expiring Social Security payroll tax cut (
With the intent of pressuring Senate Democrats into advancing the conference agreement, the House Appropriations Committee filed a new bill (
House Democrats were unlikely to vote for the new bill, however, and there was no certainty that House Republicans would provide enough votes for passage.
Later in the day Thursday, lawmakers revisited the idea of returning to the conference agreement as the way to move the year’s unfinished appropriations.
By then, Senate leaders from both parties were making progress on a payroll tax agreement, and that appeared to break the appropriations logjam.
Senate Appropriations Chairman
The House is expected to adopt the conference agreement Friday, with a large number of Democrats voting “yes.”
House Appropriations Chairman
Gambling on Passage
House leaders had gambled that Congress would clear the final fiscal 2012 measure before agencies and departments began to shut down their operations for lack of money.
Deal Reached on Spending Bill
A continuing resolution (PL 112-55) that has kept the government operating expires Friday, and House leaders ignored calls from Senate Majority Leader
Speaker
Pelosi said earlier negotiations among appropriators had weeded out some “horrific” items proposed by Republicans but that Democrats were not ready to endorse the spending package.
The contents of the conference agreement had been largely kept under wraps since it was mostly finished. But when the House Rules Committee unveiled the new nine-bill package early Thursday, rank-and-file lawmakers and the public were able to get a glimpse of its details.
The conference agreement on
Last-Minute Negotiations
Reid and other Democrats had insisted all week that several issues in the conference agreement had remained unresolved.
Rep.
“It was a long, hard slog, but it was worth it,” DeLauro said.
Among the unresolved issues were provisions involving abortions in the District of Columbia financed by locally collected tax dollars and travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens who have family on the island.
The conference agreement appeared to have preserved current law restrictions on locally financed abortions in the District of Columbia. But the limit on Cuba travel was dropped.
The House Appropriations Committee in June had adopted an amendment from
Cuban-Americans were allowed only one trip every three years to visit with family and could send no more than $1,200 a year in remittances. Obama had lifted the limit on travel, and the cap on remittances was raised to $2,000 a year.
Deal Reached on Spending Bill
Paul M. Krawzak and Alan K. Ota contributed to this story.