Congress Braces for Battle Over Massive Spending Bill
March 18 2018 - 1:15PM
Dow Jones News
By Kristina Peterson
WASHINGTON -- Congress will enter its last major fiscal battle
before November's midterm elections this week, as lawmakers prepare
to debate a mammoth spending bill that offers them the last chance
to settle dozens of long-running policy fights.
Lawmakers are expected to unveil Monday a bill funding the
government until October at ramped-up spending levels agreed to
last month in a two-year budget deal. Over the weekend,
congressional leaders were still haggling over a handful of policy
issues that have divided the parties for weeks.
Democrats and Republicans have fought over whether to restore
subsidies aimed at shoring up the Affordable Care Act and bar
subsidies for insurers who cover abortion services. Also at issue
are funding for immigration enforcement, a host of tax provisions
and funding for a new rail tunnel into New York City -- a fight
that pits President Donald Trump against some Republicans from his
region.
With the midterms approaching, lawmakers were widely expected to
reach an agreement on the spending bill so that they could turn
their attention to the intensifying battles for control of the
House and Senate in November.
The spending bill must clear both the House and Senate before
12:01 a.m. on Saturday, when the government's current funding
expires, to avoid a partial shutdown. Last month, delays in the
Senate caused Congress to briefly shutter the government before
passing the spending bill needed to reopen it.
Congressional leaders are hoping to avoid another shutdown, but
it isn't clear that they have allotted enough time to pass
legislation that likely will draw some opposition from both sides
of the aisle. In the Senate, any lawmaker can hinder the chamber
from speeding up its time-consuming procedures, as Sen. Rand Paul
(R., Ky.) did last month.
Conservatives, including Mr. Paul, have balked at the bill's
boost in funding above limits that Congress established in 2011 to
try to rein in federal spending. The budget deal passed in February
lifted overall spending levels above those limits for both military
and domestic spending by almost $300 billion over two years, in
addition to nearly $90 billion in disaster aid for states and
territories hit by last year's destructive storms and $140 billion
in emergency military funds.
"Republicans don't know how to stop spending money," said Jason
Pye, vice president of legislative affairs for FreedomWorks, a
conservative group that is expected to oppose the spending
bill.
Mr. Trump is urging GOP leaders to exclude $900 million in
funding for at least one project: a tunnel under the Hudson River,
the centerpiece of Amtrak's proposed $30 billion Gateway Program.
The president's push has alarmed House Republicans from the region
but pleased conservatives upset over the bill's funding levels.
"Our hair should be on fire about the overspending," said Rep.
Mark Walker (R., N.C.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee,
a group of more than 150 conservative House Republicans. "We've got
to do better than this."
Meanwhile, Democrats faced disappointments of their own in the
bill, as it isn't likely to include any extension of the Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Mr. Trump ended the
program, which shields young undocumented immigrants from
deportation, in September and gave Congress until early March to
pass a replacement.
Democrats tried to use their leverage on a spending bill in
January to demand protections for the immigrants, often called
Dreamers. But the resulting three-day government shutdown ended
without any legislative deal over immigration and left Democrats
wary of using such a tactic again.
Asked Sunday on Fox whether Democrats are abandoning DACA
beneficiaries by not forcing a government shutdown over the issue,
Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) said, "We're not going to have a
shutdown, but I'm urging leaders to come together and understand
there's an emergency here. We have to move on a bipartisan
basis."
Federal judges have blocked the administration from winding down
the DACA program for now, easing the pressure on lawmakers to reach
an immediate deal.
Some Democrats in both chambers are likely to vote against the
spending bill because the Dreamers' fate remains unresolved. But
many Democrats are likely to support legislation, because it
includes funding for many of their other priorities, including
child care assistance, medical research, infrastructure and
combating the opioid epidemic.
"We got about 80% of what we were trying to get, and if you
can't accept 80%, then the system can't function," said Rep. John
Yarmuth of Kentucky, the top Democrat on the House Budget
Committee, in an interview that aired Sunday on C-Span.
Passage of the spending bill would mark the end of lawmakers'
practice in recent years of funding the government with a series of
short-term patches.
Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 18, 2018 13:00 ET (17:00 GMT)
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