Congress clearly wanted to go home early for Christmas this year. Both the House and the Senate sped through the 2,000-page, omnibus year-end fiscal bill that clears the way to spend $1.15 trillion – yes, trillion with a T – and gives away $620 billion (with a B) in tax breaks for businesses and low-income workers.
The spending measure for 2016 includes a $66 billion increase in federal outlays above previously agreed-upon limits, divided equally between military and nonmilitary programs.
The House vote on the spending bill was 316 to 113, with 150 Republicans and 166 Democrats supporting it. The Senate expedited floor action and approved the package by 65 to 33.
The bill did not include blocks on environmental and labor rules. Nor did it cut off government financing for Planned Parenthood or put restrictions on Syrian and Iraqi refugees. It extended renewable energy tax credits essential for wind energy and solar power development, but it lifted the ban on oil exports.
Christmas rush aside, this bill and its quick support is good news on many fronts – perhaps most of all in that it breaks the trend of the bitter partisan hold-outs of recent years that left the country lurching from one fiscal crisis to another and left departments overseeing infrastructure paralyzed to budget sensibly.