WASHINGTON—The House and Senate are rushing to send President Barack Obama a massive budget package that would fund the entire government through September 2016 and shower tax breaks on working families, businesses and a wide swath of special interests.
Friday’s votes promise to finish up a surprisingly productive, bipartisan burst of late-session legislation in a divided Congress.
Obama has promised to sign the measure, but it must first overcome some resistance. House Democrats are upset over a victory for big oil, while tea party lawmakers say it spends too much money and has too few victories for the Republicans controlling Capitol Hill.
It may squeak through the House on a relatively narrow vote. Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California, a key negotiator, swung forcefully behind the measure Thursday evening, despite her ire over its lifting of the four-decade ban on exporting U.S. crude oil — which most Democrats oppose.
“Republicans’ desperate thirst for lifting the oil export ban empowered Democrats to win significant concessions throughout,” Pelosi wrote her Democratic colleagues, citing spending increases for domestic programs, tax breaks for renewable energy, and Democratic success in driving most GOP policy riders from the measure.
On Thursday, Republicans powered the tax portion of the package past divided Democrats by a 318-109 vote.
Both parties scored political coups. More than 50 expiring tax cuts will be extended, with more than 20 becoming permanent, including credits for companies’ expenditures for research and equipment purchases and reductions for lower-earning families and households with children and college students.
“Finally, with this tax bill, families and businesses are going to have the long-term certainty that they need instead of scrambling year after year to find out what’s next,” declared House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Friday’s House vote comes on the $1.14 trillion spending measure, which would fund the operations of every Cabinet agency. It awards increases of about 6 percent, on average, above tight spending caps that were a relic of a 2011 budget and debt deal — and were opposed by both GOP defense hawks and Democrats seeking boosts in domestic spending.
