Highlights of the $330 billion-plus bill to avoid shutdown
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, center, is joined by, from left, House Republican Conference chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., as she talks about the bipartisan border security compromise needed to avert another government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, today. Granger was a member of the committee that worked out the compromise.
WASHINGTON >> It’s not just about President Donald Trump’s border wall.
The border security issues that sparked a 35-day government shutdown are but one element of a massive $330 billion-plus spending measure that wraps seven bills into one, funding nine Cabinet agencies, including the departments of Justice, State, Agriculture and Commerce. End-stage fights over unrelated policy provisions produced a deadlock, so efforts to extend soon-to-expire laws like the federal flood insurance program were dropped.
While full details haven’t been released, highlights include:
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A BILLION HERE, A BILLION THERE
Most of the bill deals with spending minutia such as a $1 billion increase to gear up for the 2020 census, an almost 4 percent budget increase for NASA and an $11.3 billion budget for the IRS. Most agencies are kept relatively level compared to last year, and the measure rejects big spending cuts — such as a $12 billion cut to foreign aid and the State Department — proposed by Trump.
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FEDERAL EMPLOYEE PAY
Trump has proposed a pay freeze for civilian federal employees, but the measure would guarantee those workers a 1.9 percent increase, according to No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer of Maryland. The military got a 2.6 percent increase in legislation that passed Congress last year.
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‘EXTENDERS’? NEVER MIND
Lawmakers in both parties eyed the measure to renew the government’s troubled federal flood insurance program through Sept. 30, but it and a full menu of expiring laws collectively known as “extenders” went unaddressed in the end. That meant a host of miscellaneous provisions were dropped in the final stages.
A drive by Senate Republicans to extend the Violence Against Women Act was blocked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who feared it would undercut efforts to update the law this spring.
Meanwhile, an extension of a Medicaid provision on home- and community-based nursing care, grants for the poor under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and fixes to a trust fund that finances dredging and maintenance or ports and harbors will also have to advance later.
A bid by Pelosi to win back pay for federal contractors laid off during the recent shutdown was blocked by the White House.
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BIG TRUCKS
For fans of the truly obscure, there’s a provision to exempt sugar beet trucks in rural Oregon from length limits. It would also add exemptions to federal truck weight rules in the state of Kentucky.
