Big $1.1 trillion spending bill faces first test Thursday
Published 9:45 am Wednesday, December 10, 2014
WASHINGTON — A huge, $1.1 trillion spending bill funding every corner of government faces its first test in the House, where conservatives are unhappy because it fails to challenge President Barack Obama’s immigration policy and many Democrats are displeased because it weakens the 2010 Dodd-Frank regulation of risky financial instruments.
Another provision drawing fire would allow pensions to be cut for current retirees covered by some economically-distressed multiemployer plans, part of a package agreed to unexpectedly Tuesday after secretive talks.
The 1,603-page measure was unveiled late Tuesday and will be scrutinized in advance of a House vote Thursday. But support from the top leaders in both the House and the Senate appears to cement its passage and prevent a government shutdown Thursday midnight, despite the presence of items in the legislation for lawmakers of all persuasions to dislike.
The measure adheres to tight budget caps negotiated previously between the White House and Republicans, freezing agency budgets, on average. It also includes several provisions to fulfill Republican policy objectives, including significantly weakening new regulations that require banks to set up separate affiliates to deal in the more exotic and riskier forms of complex financial instruments called swaps. But some top Democrats, including Appropriations Committee member Nita Lowey of New York, supported the provision, and party leaders didn’t appear to try too hard to knock it out.