Senate leaders announce sweeping budget deal; House may still reject it

Source: USA Today::

February 7, 2018 at 12:53

Pelosi followed her surprise statement with a dramatic and lengthy speech on the House floor, where she read heart-tugging stories of DREAMers aspiring to become U.S. citizens while calling on Ryan to guarantee a vote for a long-term legislative solution for their status.

WASHINGTON—The Senate’s Republican and Democratic leaders unveiled a sweeping two-year budget agreement on Wednesday that would increase federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars on domestic and defense programs alike.

That deal would nix strict budget caps, set in 2011 to reduce the federal deficit, and would allow Congress to spend billions of dollars more in the current fiscal year and in fiscal year 2019.

The fate of the deal remained uncertain Wednesday, with House conservatives expressing concerns about busting the budget caps and House Democrats saying the agreement did not do enough to protect young undocumented immigrants.

The agreement repeals spending cuts that were scheduled to hit defense and domestic programs this fiscal year and next year.

In addition, Democrats won an additional $57 billion over two years in new funding for domestic programs—$26 billion for the remainder of this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, and $31 billion for fiscal year 2019.

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