WASHINGTON — (CNN) The House and Senate are voting Friday on a year-end $1.1 trillion spending package that avoids a government shutdown next week and funds federal agencies through next fall.
But in the hours before the vote, House Democratic leaders were working to shore up support from angry liberals who are threatening to sink the bill over oil exports and fiscal support for Puerto Rico.
The bipartisan deal marks the first major fiscal package negotiated by the new House Speaker Paul Ryan, and the debate is a marked departure from previous spending fights that were full of drama right before the deadline and internal back-biting inside the House Republican conference. Most of the heavy lifting on this bill was done by Ryan’s predecessor, John Boehner, R-Ohio, who cut a budget deal with Democrats right before he stepped down that set the overall spending levels.
But just like Boehner did, Ryan will need major help from Democrats to pass the funding measure because of opposition from conservatives to spending levels and what some see as a surrender to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on key policy riders. Pelosi, however, doesn’t have a unified caucus either: Many Democrats are criticizing the legislation because it removes a decades-old ban on crude oil exports and omits financial protections for Puerto Rico, which is struggling with a debt crisis.
Incensed members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus seized on these two issues in the past two days and argued the bill should be defeated. Multiple Democrats say the GOP has roughly only 100 votes for the spending deal, and will still need to get the vast majority of House Democrats on board to get to the 218 needed.
Asked on Thursday whether she could provide the votes to get the deal through on Friday, Pelosi replied flatly: “no.”
And in what appeared like a warning to Ryan and his party, Pelosi said, “They have the majority. They have the legislation. We have some serious objections, which we’ve been made known all along. So, we’ll see.”
But Pelosi and her top lieutenants are still working to get the bill passed.
They told Democrats at a closed-door meeting that while they aren’t thrilled with the deal, on balance there are still things in it worth supporting, such as a health program for 9/11 first responders and increased spending for other key domestic priorities. They warned if the bill didn’t pass, Republicans would still end up getting the tax cuts that were negotiated alongside the spending bill, and Democrats would be short-changing a host of programs they have fought to give more resources.
The House on Thursday easily passed the $620 billion tax cut package, and the Senate hopes to clear Friday and send to President Barack Obama for his signature. Notably, 77 Democrats joined the majority of Republicans to back it.
“At the end of the day, you walk out with less of what you wanted, and more of what you didn’t want. I think that’s inadvisable,” New York Democratic Rep. Steve Israel said Thursday.
Ryan has repeatedly stressed he doesn’t like rolling up all the spending bills, along with a myriad of policy provisions, into one measure. And he has actively made clear he believes the House is simply finishing the work left by Boehner.
“We inherited a process, a cake that was pretty much more than half-baked,” Ryan said Thursday.
Conservatives complained that Ryan didn’t include some items they wanted, such as new restrictions on Syrian refugees coming into the country or limits on federal dollars for Planned Parenthood. But the speaker argued that in divided government, there was a limit to what Democrats could accept and said it contained “some big wins for the country, whether it’s lifting the oil export ban, increasing military spending or renewing health care for the 9/11 first responders.”
Once the House acts, and many expect it will ultimately approve the bill on a narrow margin, the Senate will vote on the package, and it’s expected to pass it and send it the President to sign before the federal government runs out of money at midnight on Tuesday.
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