WASHINGTON–A modest, bipartisan budget pact designed to avert another US government shutdown and ease the harshest effects of automatic budget cuts is on the brink of final passage in Congress.The Democratic-led Senate is on track to clear the bill Wednesday for President Barack Obama's signature.The budget bill easily passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives last week, and the Senate voted 67-33 on Tuesday to advance the measure for a final vote.
The measure would restore US$45 billion, half the amount scheduled to be automatically cut from the 2014 operating budgets of the Pentagon and some domestic agencies, lifting them above US$1 trillion.An additional US$18 billion for 2015 would provide enough relief to essentially freeze spending at those levels for the year.The budget deal marks a modest accomplishment for the divided and often dysfunctional Congress.
It comes at the end of a chaotic year punctuated by a 16-day partial government shutdown, spurred by Republicans in a futile attempt to curb implementation of Obama's health care reform law, brinksmanship over raising the federal debt limit and congressional gridlock on issues ranging from immigration to gun control.All that has taken a toll on the approval ratings of both Republicans and Democrats–and Obama himself–creating anxiety across the political spectrum over next year's elections when control of Congress will be at stake.
The bill advanced with the help of 12 Republicans, although several promised to oppose the measure in the final vote because it fails to take on the nation's most pressing fiscal challenges.It would barely dent deficits that are predicted to lessen in the short term but grow larger by the end of the decade and into the next. Democrats supported the measure, even though many were unhappy that the measure lacked an extension of long-term unemployment benefits that are due to expire for nearly 1.3 million Americans on December 28.
One provision, cutting the inflation increases of pensions for military retirees under the age of 62, was proving to be especially unpopular among members of both parties. Members of the military are eligible to retire after 20 years at half pay."We had to look at how we could find compromises," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, a Democrat who negotiated the bill with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, a Republican."There's things in this I like and there's things I don't like."
The budget pact sets the stage in January for the pragmatic-minded House and Senate Appropriations committees to draft a trillion-dollar-plus omnibus spending bill combining the 12 annual appropriations bills for the budget year that began October 1.It would provide US$1.012 trillion for the fiscal 2014 year already underway, a US$45 billion increase over what would be required under the penalty imposed by a 2011 budget deal.
Agency budgets totaled US$986 billion in 2013 after automatic cuts, which were imposed after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a budget agreement.The cuts, called sequestration, had been intended to be so onerous that they would force Washington to reach a lasting deal on government spending.
AP