A two-year agreement to raise federal spending and at the same time lift the government’s borrowing limit will go to the president’s desk after it passed the Senate with more Democrats voting for it than Republicans.
The bill, which provides for more than $2.7 trillion in discretionary spending over the next two years, was the result of weeks of negotiations between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). It suspends the debt ceiling until the end of July 2021 and sets spending levels roughly $320 billion above limits set in a 2011 law.
While President Trump and Republican leadership have celebrated the increases in military spending the deal calls for, conservatives in the House and Senate have lambasted what they say are unsustainable increases in federal deficits. Under the Trump administration, the annual federal deficit is set to reach $1 trillion a year.
Passed, 67-28: H.R.3877, Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019
— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) August 1, 2019
“I am confident it is not exactly the legislation that either side of the aisle would have written if one party held the White House, the House, and had 60 votes in the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the chamber’s floor Wednesday. “That’s divided government. But I am equally confident that this is a deal that every one of my colleagues should support.”
An expanded version of this story appears on WSJ.com.
Popular at WSJ.com:
Republican engineer fired by Google claims bullying
Regulators found high risk of emergency after first Boeing MAX crash
