Congressional leaders unveil $1.3 trillion spending deal as shutdown looms

Deirdre Shesgreen and Eliza Collins | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders reached agreement Wednesday on a massive spending bill that would increase funding to fight the opioid epidemic, help states with election security, and boost infrastructure spending across the country, including for a tunnel between New York and New Jersey that President Trump opposes.

The spending bill does not include funding for President Trump's long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border or new money for interior immigration enforcement — rejecting two items that Trump had demanded in the negotiations. But it does include new funding for border fencing and other beefed-up security, according to the final text.

The White House issued a statement Wednesday afternoon offering support for the spending plan.

“The president had a discussion with Speaker (Paul) Ryan and Leader (Mitch) McConnell, where they talked about their shared priorities secured in the omnibus spending bill," the statement said.

Later Wednesday night, the president tweeted he got $1.6 billion to build a border wall and $700 million for defense. He said Congress had to "waste money on Dem giveaways" to pay for a military pay increase.

Got $1.6 Billion to start Wall on Southern Border, rest will be forthcoming. Most importantly, got $700 Billion to rebuild our Military, $716 Billion next year...most ever. Had to waste money on Dem giveaways in order to take care of military pay increase and new equipment. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2018

The Senate's Democratic leader, Charles Schumer of New York, touted key Democratic priorities and said the deal was the result of hard-fought negotiations. The bill would increase domestic spending by $63 billion over last year's levels, or about 12%.

“So many of our priorities for the middle class were included," Schumer said. "From opioid funding to rural broadband, and from student loans to child care, this bill puts workers and families first.”

Republicans championed the $80 billion increase in military spending, a 15% spike.

“Today marks the beginning of a new era for the United States military," said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "With the biggest increase in defense funding in 15 years, this critical legislation begins to reverse the damage of the last decade and allows us to create a 21st-century fighting force."

Congress must pass a new spending bill before midnight on Friday or it will trigger another partial government shutdown. Lawmakers have funded the government through a series of short-term spending bills, lurching from one shutdown threat to another for almost six months of the fiscal year.

The new agreement would allocate $1.3 trillion to fund domestic and military programs through Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year.

The prospects for a shutdown have surged in recent days as lawmakers continued to haggle over details of the spending deal. Lawmakers may try to pass a short-term measure before Friday's deadline to buy more time for consideration of the bigger spending deal.

Democrats highlighted new domestic spending in the package, including $2.8 billion for opioid addiction treatment, prevention and research and $380 million in grants to states for new technology to guard against cyberattacks, as well as millions of dollars in additional funding for the FBI to combat possible Russian meddling in the 2018 elections.

The bill also includes money for a high-profile infrastructure project opposed by Trump — a long-planned tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan known as the Gateway project. 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.

Although the measure doesn't fund a border wall, it does include $1.6 billion for border security, including $641 million for 33 miles of fencing and levees along the southern border..

The administration also wanted more money for new interior immigration agents to ramp up deportations and additional detention beds, but neither of those are included in the draft package. Republicans did secure a bump in funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency but not to carry out increased deportations.

The bill doesn't include any provisions to protect so-called DREAMers, undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, from deportation. Democrats have sought to grant those immigrants a path to citizenship, but they failed to pass a stand-alone immigration bill earlier this year or to get any permanent solution to that issue in the spending bill.

The president blasted Democrats with another late-night tweet, saying they "refused to take care of" the DREAMers.

Democrats refused to take care of DACA. Would have been so easy, but they just didn’t care. I had to fight for Military and start of Wall. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2018

Democrats were just as happy about a couple of items not in the package: a provision to de-fund family-planning grants, including money to Planned Parenthood, and a measure aimed at barring federal dollars from going to so-called sanctuary cities that limit local law enforcement's cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Those conservative priorities will not be in the final deal.

The spending bill also includes a couple of items that are not related to spending. Lawmakers included a bipartisan proposal that would boost compliance with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Called “Fix NICS,” the bill was a response to a Texas church massacre in November that may have been prevented if authorities had reported the shooter's violent history.

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

Another add-on: provisions fixing the so-called "grain glitch," a tax break for farmers that was included at the last minute in the Republican tax package passed last December. The provision allows farmers to deduct 20% of their gross sales if they sell their goods to farming cooperatives. But if they sell to corporations, they can write off only 20% of their net income.

For-profit grain companies say that puts them at a competitive disadvantage because farmers would be more inclined to sell to cooperatives to take advantage of the tax break. Republicans want to fix that disparity as part of the spending bill.

Democrats and Republicans agreed on top-line spending levels in February, when they approved a sweeping budget deal and a short-term funding measure to keep the government open until midnight March 23.

The fiscal year for 2018 began Oct. 1, 2017, but Congress has failed to pass a long-term measure to fund federal agencies — relying instead on five stop-gap measures to keep the government open. There was a partial shutdown for several days in January when a short-term spending bill expired with no agreement on an extension. Another disagreement led to lapse in funding for just a few hours in February, but it was resolved quickly enough that it did not disrupt government services. That deal extended funding through Friday.

Contributing: Michael Collins, Nicole Gaudiano