By DAVID ESPO AP Special Correspondent
Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation
Wednesday scaling back across-the-board cuts on programs
ranging from the Pentagon to the national park system,
adding a late dusting of bipartisanship to a year more
likely to be remembered for a partial government shutdown
and near-perpetual gridlock.
Obama's signature was assured on the measure, which
lawmakers in both parties and at opposite ends of the
Capitol said they hoped would curb budget brinkmanship and
prevent more shutdowns in the near future.
"It's a good first step away from the shortsighted,
crisis-driven decision-making that has only served to act as
a drag on our economy," he said of the measure in a
statement issued after the vote. And yet, he quickly added,
"there is much more work to do to ensure our economy works
for every working American."
The legislation passed the Democratic-controlled Senate on a
vote of 64-36, six days after clearing the Republican-run
House by a similarly bipartisan margin of 332-94.
The product of intensive year-end talks, the measure met the
short-term political needs of Republicans, Democrats and the
White House. As a result, there was no suspense about the
outcome of the vote in the Senate — only about fallout in
the 2014 elections and, more immediately, its impact on
future congressional disputes over spending and the nation's
debt limit.
"I'm tired of the gridlock and the American people that I
talk to, especially from Arkansas, are tired of it as well,"
said Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat who supported the bill yet
will have to defend his vote in next year's campaign for a
new term. His likely Republican rival, Rep. Tom Cotton,
voted against the measure last week when it cleared the
House.
The measure, negotiated by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., averts $63 billion in
across-the-board spending cuts that were themselves the
result of an earlier inability of lawmakers and the White
House to agree on a sweeping deficit reduction plan. That
represents about one-third of the cuts originally ticketed
for the 2014 and 2015 budget years and known in Washington
as sequestration.
Democrats expressed satisfaction that money would be
restored for programs like Head Start and education, and
lawmakers in both parties and the White House cheered the
cancellation of future cuts at the Pentagon.
To offset the added spending, the legislation provides about
$85 billion in savings from elsewhere in the budget.
Included are increases in the airline ticket tax that helps
pay for security at airports and a fee corporations pay to
have pensions guaranteed by the government. Most
controversial by far was a provision to curtail annual cost
of living increases in benefits that go to military retirees
under age 62, a savings of $6.3 billion over a decade for
the government.
By one estimate, the result would be a reduction of nearly
$72,000 in benefits over a lifetime for a sergeant first
class who retires at age 42 after 20 years of service.
Veterans groups and their allies in Congress objected
vociferously to what they said was a singling out of former
members of the military, and key lawmakers in both parties
said they would take a second look at the provision next
year.
But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said a veteran of
identical rank who retired at 38 would still wind up with
$1.62 million in retirement pay over a lifetime. He also
pointed out that a prominent deficit commission headed by
former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former
Sen. Alan Simpson had recommended abolishing cost of living
increases for military retirement pay as part of a sweeping
deficit reduction plan, a far deeper curtailment included in
the legislation.
McCain, who was a Vietnam prisoner of war, also asked
rhetorically if there were an alternative to the pending
legislation that would also "prevent us from shutting down
the government again, something that I refuse to inflict on
the citizens of my state."
In response, Murray said there was no other legislation to
accomplish that. She added that if the bill did not pass,
the Pentagon "would take another $20 billion hit" from
across-the-board cuts early next year, with some personnel
furloughed as a result.
She made one concession, telling Georgians Johnny Isakson
and Saxby Chambliss she would work to exclude disabled
veterans from the change contained in the legislation.
The longer-term political fallout was harder to calculate.
Tea party organizations lined up to oppose the legislation,
arguing that it would raise spending. Deficits are projected
to rise slightly for three years because of the bill. Three
potential GOP presidential contenders, Sens. Marco Rubio of
Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, all
opposed the bill.
So, too, did the party's top leaders, Sen. Mitch McConnell
of Kentucky and John Cornyn of Texas, and several members of
the rank and file who face primary challenges from the right
next year.
Even so, the leadership's opposition did not extend to an
effort to derail the bill, which advanced over a critical
procedural obstacle on Tuesday with the support of a dozen
Republican senators. On the final vote Wednesday, all 53
Democrats, two independents and nine Republican voted for
the bill. Defeating the measure would have required a fresh
round of negotiations with the House, with no guarantee that
a partial shutdown could be avoided when current government
funding expires on Jan. 15.
Passage of the measure will permit the House and Senate
Appropriations Committees to draft a massive,
trillion-dollar-plus omnibus measure to run the government
through the end of September 2014. Lawmakers are expected to
use the opportunity to assert their own priorities rather
than defer as frequently to the administration, a tactic
that is less possible when short-term bills must be passed
with a shutdown looming.
The canceled across-the-board reductions put spending on
general government programs at $1.012 trillion for the 12
annual appropriations bills for the budget year that began
Oct. 1 and a nearly identical $1.014 for the next.
Agency budgets totaled $986 billion in 2013 after automatic
cuts called sequestration were imposed, causing numerous
furloughs, harming military readiness and cutting grants to
local school districts, health researchers and providers of
Head Start preschool care to low-income children, among
numerous effects. The next round of automatic cuts would
have sent spending down to $967 billion.
The cuts themselves were triggered after lawmakers failed to
agree two years ago on a far more sweeping series of deficit
reductions.
———
Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this
report.
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