Lawmakers unveil massive $1.1 trillion spending bill in bipartisan compromise

Congressional negotiators unveiled a $1.1 trillion funding bill late Monday that would ease sharp spending cuts known as the sequester while providing fresh cash for new priorities, including President Obama’s push to expand early-childhood education.

The 1,582-page bill would fully restore cuts to Head Start, partially restore cuts to medical research and job training programs, and finance new programs to combat sexual assault in the military. It would also give all federal workers a 1 percent raiseBut in a blow to the District, it provides only partial funding to continue constructing buildings for the Department of Homeland Security’s campus in Anacostia.

The White House and leaders of both parties praised the measure, which would fund federal agencies for the remainder of the fiscal year and end the lingering threat of a government shutdown when the current funding bill expires at midnight Wednesday.

“The bipartisan appropriations bill represents a positive step forward for the nation and our economy,” White House budget director Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in a statement.

The spending bill puts flesh on the bones of a bipartisan budget deal struck in December, when Republicans and Democrats agreed to partially repeal the sequester, heading off a roughly $20 billion cut set to hit the Pentagon on Wednesday and restoring funding to domestic agencies, which had already absorbed sequester reductions.

Despite the increases, the bill would leave agency budgets tens of billions of dollars lower than Obama had requested and ­congressional Democrats had sought. That represents a victory for congressional Republicans, who, after three years of fevered battles over the budget, have succeeded in rolling back agency appropriations to a level on par with the final years of the George W. Bush administration, before spending skyrocketed in an effort to combat the recession.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said he expects a majority of lawmakers in both parties to support the measure.

“Everybody can find something to complain about — legitimately so,” Cole said. “But from the Republican standpoint, gosh, this is $164 billion less than Bush’s last discretionary budget, so that’s pretty good progress in cutting spending.

see more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/members-of-congress-to-unveil-massive-spending-bill-in-bipartisan-compromise/2014/01/13/71db3a8c-7c9e-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html