Last week the US went through the threat of a government shutdown when members of the Senate and the House failed to agree on a way forward regarding the spending bill for the next five months of the financial year. The stalemate was caused by President Trump’s proposal that the bill includes money for building the US-Mexico wall as well as drastically reduce the funds allocated to Americans under the Obamacare Act.
Throughout the weekend, Congress representatives from both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party worked to come up with a bill that worked in everyone’s best interests. Though the draft the negotiators came up with has not yet been approved by the Senate and the House, it is still a step up from the Congress’s position on Friday.
What does the proposed Bill stipulate?
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was among the first politicians to publicly state that the way forward would have to be with a bipartisan bill. Indeed, it seems that her words are going to be proven correct. Both parties have a lot gain from the proposed law, though it does appear to favor the Democrats’ side.
The bill is estimated at $1 trillion at the moment. One of the notable allocations is the defense budget. While Republicans had requested for $30 billion in spending, the military is set to receive $12.5 billion under the proposed bill. This is a win for the Democrats. However, the bill also includes an additional $2.5 billion for the defense department if they succeed in securing the defeat of the Islamic State, a good enough concession to keep the Republicans satisfied.
Similarly, both parties flat out rejected President Trump’s suggestion of including money to build the Southern border wall. The two groups decided to assign $1.5 billion to border security, half of the originally petitioned amount.
The issue of medical care was a bit more complicated. Some Republicans declared last week that they intended to scrap Obamacare. The new bill just goes to show that this will likely not be the case. Not only will Obamacare still be covered under the proposed law but also include healthcare benefits for coal miners who would have lost their benefits under the Republican Healthcare plan. Additionally, the US will spend “295 million on Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program if the Senate and the House pass the bill.
Other stipulations in the proposed spending bill include an additional $100 million in opioid treatment programs, $61 million in reimbursement fees for police agencies that provided the president with security while he was in Florida and New York, $407 million for wildfire relief funds in several states as well as funds for community development.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the proposed bill a ‘good deal for Americans.’ The Housing Appropriations Committee also approved of it, saying that it would ensure that ‘all federal government functions’ would be carried out. Schumer additionally remarked that the bill came at the right time to ‘avert a government shutdown.’ Such a closure would have cost many federal public servants their jobs and led to the closure of national parks and monuments.
