(CNN) — Senate leaders unveiled a massive two-year budget deal Wednesday, a major victory for both parties that could prevent a government shutdown at the end of this week and increase the federal government’s spending. But the plan still needs to pass the House, where it’s already facing strong headwinds.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unveiled the deal with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor, which would boost military and non-defense spending by $300 billion over the next two years as well as add more than $80 billion in disaster relief. About $160 billion would go to the Pentagon and about $128 billion would to non-defense programs. The agreement also includes aid to respond to recent natural disasters.
The key outlying issue appears to be for how long to hike the debt ceiling, which the US is expected to hit next month, though the exact parameters were still being negotiated when the deal was announced.
“I am pleased to announce that our bipartisan, bicameral negotiations on defense spending and other priorities have yielded a significant agreement,” McConnell said in his announcement.
Later Wednesday, the Senate still plans to vote on the House-passed standalone defense funding bill, which is expected to fail at a procedural vote. Then senators take up the House-passed budget continuing resolution. The cloture vote on that is expected to be Thursday, at which point they’ll strip the House language, and replace it with the Senate language.
While that bill is expected to pass easily in the Senate, the House will be a tougher sell. The caps deal will likely need Democratic support and some Democrats have been emphatic that they don’t want to agree to raise budget caps until they have assurances that recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program will be protected. There’s no sign indication from congressional negotiators that that will be the case.
The effort got a boost from President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening.
“The Budget Agreement today is so important for our great Military,” Trump tweeted. “It ends the dangerous sequester and gives Secretary Mattis what he needs to keep America Great. Republicans and Democrats must support our troops and support this Bill!”
Just before the deal was formally made public, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California announced she was opposed to it, and while she didn’t encourage her caucus to vote “no,” her statement raises questions about whether there will ultimately be enough Democratic support in the House to pass the bill.
“This morning, we took a measure of our Caucus because the package does nothing to advance bipartisan legislation to protect Dreamers in the House,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Without a commitment from Speaker Ryan comparable to the commitment from Leader McConnell, this package does not have my support.”
She went on to publicly read letters from DACA recipients on the House floor, and in the process broke the record for longest House floor speech, starting just after 10 a.m. ET. She was wrapped up at of 6:10 p.m. ET, 8 hours later.
The deal would clear the deck for Congress. If the spending numbers are agreed to, lawmakers could concentrate on tackling other issues like immigration and infrastructure rather than careening from one budget crisis to the next. The bill would also provide long overdue disaster funding for Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico months after hurricanes devastated homes, infrastructure and coastlines there.
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