What's in – and what's out – of the $1.3 trillion spending bill

 

WASHINGTON — Congress may have finally figured out how to fund the government for more than a few weeks at a time: with a massive $1.3 trillion spending bill released late Wednesday night.

The bill, if passed, would affect everything from military readiness to opioid addiction treatment. Lawmakers hope to pass it before a Friday midnight deadline, when the government will run out of money.

Here are four key items that are in the bill — and two big things that were left out:

Gun violence 

In an effort to address gun deaths, negotiators included a bipartisan proposal to boost compliance with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Called “Fix NICS,” the bill emerged as a response to a Texas church massacre in November that may have been prevented if authorities had reported the shooter’s violent history.

The measure would penalize federal agencies that fail to properly report relevant records and provide incentives to states to improve their overall reporting to NICS. It would also direct more federal funding to boost the accuracy of domestic violence records.

The spending bill also includes one sentence clarifying that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can conduct research on the causes of gun violence. The CDC stopped investigating that issue after Congress passed a 1996 amendment banning the agency from using any federal dollars to “advocate or promote gun control.”

Critics say that 1996 language produced a “chilling effect” on research that has lasted more than two decades. The omnibus addresses that complaint by stating the CDC “has the authority to conduct on the causes of gun violence.”

 A tax law fix

Remember that tax law the Republicans passed last year? Well, it included at least one glitch that has some grain companies fuming. The law included a break allowing some farmers to deduct 20 percent of their gross sales if they sell their goods to farming cooperatives. But if they sell to corporations, they can write off only 20 percent of their net income.

For-profit grain companies said that put them at a competitive disadvantage because farmers would be more inclined to sell to cooperatives so they can take advantage of the tax break. Republicans wanted to fix that disparity as part of the spending bill, and they were successful. Now farmers can sell to cooperatives or corporations and get the larger break. 

Immigration enforcement  

President Trump wanted the bill to include $25 billion for his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He got $641 million for about 33 miles of new border “fencing” and levees, plus nearly $1.3 billion for border-security technology.

Trump also wanted money to hire additional immigration agents to ramp up deportations and funding for more detention beds. Neither of those are in the final deal but Republicans did secure a bump in funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Democrats wanted legal protections for the so-called DREAMers, undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. The DREAMers and the wall funding were the subject of intense negotiations over the weekend but nothing came to fruition.  

The Gateway project

The spending bill includes millions of dollars for a high-profile infrastructure project that Trump opposes — a long-planned tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan known as the Gateway project. Trump even reportedly threatened to veto the spending bill if it included money for the tunnel. 

But that project is a major priority for the Senate Democratic leader, Charles Schumer of New York, as well as Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. More than $500 million in federal funding would be available to go toward constructing the tunnel under the Hudson river.

The money won’t be labeled “Gateway Tunnel,” but it will be distributed to several grant programs, which can fund the project without approval from the Trump Administration. Despite being a lifelong New Yorker, Trump has opposed the $30 billion project and urged GOP leaders not to put it in the spending bill. 

Sexual harassment and discrimination

The bill does not include a bipartisan provision that would have overhauled the way Congress handles allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. Similar legislation already passed unanimously by a voice vote in the House, but has been held up in the Senate. Many lawmakers expected the language to make it into the must-pass spending bill.

“I can’t think of any legitimate reason to remove this language other than to protect members of Congress over taxpayers and congressional employees,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said earlier this week. Gillibrand is the lead sponsor of the Senate version of the Congressional Harassment Reform Act, which has 30 bipartisan cosponsors and was expected to be the starting point for the language in the bill.

Health care subsidies

Another provision that didn’t make it into the final text is a GOP plan to stabilize Obamacare health insurance markets and help provide coverage for patients with high medical costs. The proposal would have reinstated government subsidies paid to health insurers, a program Trump had ended. It also would have provided funding to help states set up high-risk insurance pools to provide coverage for people with high medical costs.

The plan included provisions that had been hashed out on a bipartisan basis, but Republicans included language that would ban the federal funds from being used toward abortions, which Democrats said was a nonstarter. On the other end, fiscal conservatives said the bill amounted to a payout to insurance companies. 

Contributing: Michael Collins and Nicole Guadiano

Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~/534123558/0/usatodaycomwashington-topstories~Whataposs-in-ndash-and-whataposs-out-ndash-of-the-trillion-spending-bill/