House and Senate negotiators on Monday night announced a bipartisan deal to fund the government, eliminating the ever-looming threat of another government shutdown for the remainder of the fiscal year. The $1.1 trillion spending bill completes the unresolved aspects of last month’s budget agreement and, according to Politico, “promises to restore some order to government funding over the next year.”
Here’s more on some of the details of the bill via USA Today:
The “omnibus” spending bill is a sweeping piece of legislation that includes all 12 of the annual bills that provide funding for all discretionary federal spending. It does not include mandatory spending on entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. Some $520.5 billion will be spent on defense while the remaining $491.7 billion covers a broad swath of domestic programs including early education, cancer research and federal law enforcement agencies.
The Associated Press reports the bipartisan bill “doesn’t contain major victories for either side.” In a joint statement Republican and Democratic leaders put the emphasis on compromise: “As with any compromise, not everyone will like everything in this bill,” they said. “But in this divided government, a critical bill such as this simply cannot reflect the wants of only one party. We believe this is a good, workable measure that will serve the American people well, and we encourage all our colleagues to support it this week.”
The deadline to finalize the agreement, however, is Wednesday night and the House is expected to vote on a temporary measure Tuesday to keep the government open through Saturday. The extension is expected to buy lawmakers enough time to debate and vote on the larger spending bill.
