WASHINGTON—Congressional leaders are girded to push a Christmas compromise on tax cuts and spending through the House and Senate by week’s end after Republicans and Democrats reached agreement on a legislative package extending dozens of tax breaks for businesses and families and financing 2016 government operations.
A series of votes set for Thursday, culminating the process, would be Congress’ coda to a tumultuous 2015.
Despite dissenters in both parties, passage was likely and President Barack Obama’s signature seemed assured for an accord bearing victories for everyone from oil companies and working-class families to 9/11 emergency workers and biomedical researchers.
“This is divided government,” Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., said of the measures, which together totaled over 2,200 pages.
In an unspoken reference to a year that saw GOP lawmakers force the departure of former Speaker John Boehner and battle frequently among themselves, Kline added, “Let’s put 2015 behind us and move on to 2016,” an election year when Republicans hope to showcase initiatives revamping the tax code and Obama’s health care overhaul.
With temporary financing of federal agencies expiring Wednesday at midnight, congressional leaders planned to approve a stop-gap bill preventing a government shutdown through next Tuesday, giving lawmakers time to finish the long-term spending legislation.
The two-part compromise announced Tuesday included a $1.1 trillion measure funding federal agencies in the 2016 federal budget year that started Oct. 1. A separate bill, roughly estimated at around $650 billion over the next decade, renews around 50 business and individual tax breaks that have expired or are about to lapse.
Flung between the measures were wins and losses for both parties.
As their top triumph, Republicans cited a lifting of the nation’s ban on crude oil exports, imposed 40 years ago during chronic oil shortages. GOP lawmakers mocked it as a relic that ignored today’s burgeoning U.S. supplies enabled by new drilling methods, while critics called the move an environmentally damaging windfall for big oil companies.
In exchange, Democrats won five-year extensions of credits for wind and solar energy producers and a renewal of a land and water conservation fund. They also blocked GOP proposals to thwart Obama administration clean air and water regulations, but many still found the lifting of the oil export ban a bitter pill.
“Not only are we losing the oil, but we’re losing the jobs that go into refining it,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
After years of trying, Republicans claimed wins by making permanent business tax breaks for research and development and for buying new equipment. People in states without income taxes could also permanently continue deducting local sales taxes on their federal returns.
Democrats got permanent extensions of tax credits for college costs, children and lower-income families.
