The House of Representatives voted 240-186. The GOP-controlled chamber needed help from House Democrats to clear the bill, and 73 Democratic members gave it. Sixty-seven House Republicans voted against the plan.

The colossal bill, which lawmakers have been negotiating for months, is a game-changing piece of legislation, clearing the decks for Congress in dealing with major spending issues as well as doling out disaster relief money and hiking the debt ceiling which was set to be reached next month.

The Senate approved the measure earlier on Friday morning. The federal government briefly shuttered for the second time in less than a month overnight, after Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul prevented the deal from passing Thursday.

The shutdown came just weeks after Democrats and a handful of Republicans, including Paul, refused to support the last continuing resolution, causing a shutdown that lasted a weekend. The effects from the overnight shutdown were expected to be minimal.

Trump tweeted that the bill, which gives the Pentagon an additional $165 billion, was a "big victory" for the US military. But he said Hill Republicans were "forced to increase spending" in order to attract Democratic votes.

There was uncertainty about the timing of Trump's signing, and the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, still had an alert on its website early Friday morning that stated that due to a "lapse in appropriations, federal government operations vary by agency."

Just how many Democrats would come on board was a key question up until the final moments, as liberals were unhappy about the bill not addressing immigration and conservatives oppose the increased spending.

After the vote succeeded in the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kept his word to move to open an immigration debate next week . The majority leader moved to call a vote Monday to proceed to an unrelated House bill that will serve as a vehicle for a process unlike the Senate has seen in recent memory, where senators will be able to offer a number of amendments on competing immigration proposals to see which ones will secure the 60 votes needed to advance. But that will only happen if the House passes the continuing resolution later Friday morning.

JUST WATCHED Sen. Paul warns 'day of reckoning' is coming Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Sen. Paul warns 'day of reckoning' is coming 01:01

Drama but success

In the end, the votes were there -- but that didn't prevent heightened drama leading up to the vote. Democrats intensified their efforts to communicate they would hold firm in an effort to pressure Republicans to offer a commitment for a floor vote on immigration.

The overall deal also does not address immigration, a key sticking point for many Democrats, but it does increase spending caps by $300 billion for the Pentagon and domestic priorities, a crucial incentive for getting enough votes from both parties.

Leading up to the vote, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged her members to vote against the bill but also urged them to hold their votes back, forcing Republicans to show their strength.

That strategy provided several minutes of heightened drama on the House floor, as Republicans looked nervously up at a board that displays votes by member's name and the yes votes hung around 150.

But then a few Democrats began to signal their caucus to put their votes in with time ticking down, and the chamber grew quiet as the no votes and yes votes began pouring in.

It remained unclear Friday morning whether that effort would be enough, however, to placate an angry base about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy being left out of the deal after months of pressing to have it included.

Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a key Democratic voice for immigrants and immigration reform, acknowledged to reporters shortly before the vote that there remained little to no venues for Democrats to use their leverage on DACA after this deal, though members would not give up.

After the vote, Pelosi vowed that the fight to protect undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children from deportation was not over.

"I'm greatly disappointed that the Speaker does not have the courage to lift the shadow of fear from the lives of these inspiring young people," Pelosi said in a statement, referring to House Speaker Paul Ryan. "When we protect the Dreamers, we honor the highest ideals of America. Their patriotism, their perseverance, their optimism are an inspiration that stirs the conscience of our entire nation."

What's in the bill?

The massive two-year budget deal proposed by Senate leaders Wednesday raises budget caps by $300 billion in the next two years, increases the debt ceiling and offer up nearly $90 billion in disaster relief for hurricane-ravaged Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

About $165 billion would go to the Pentagon and $131 billion to non-defense programs.

"Our members who are focused on the military are very happy where we landed with that," Ryan told Hewitt on his radio show in reference to the defense spending caps.

The debt ceiling will be raised by the appropriate amount until March 2019.

Exact spending would be left to the appropriations committees, but included in the funding is $10 billion to invest in infrastructure, $2.9 billion for child care and $3 billion to combat opioid and substance abuse.

The bill also keeps the government running until late March.

Paul amendment holds up Senate vote

Paul took to the Senate floor many times Thursday refusing to agree to move up the time for a vote in the chamber on the bill, which requires unanimous consent from all 100 senators. In doing so, Paul forced the vote procedurally to occur after 1 a.m. ET on Friday, after government funding expired.

Paul slammed his colleagues for "hypocrisy" and lack of fiscal restraint, as well as a lack of a fair and open process.

"There is probably a lot of blame to go around for the Republicans who are advocating for this debt," Paul said to CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront. "But I would say, really, primarily, this is coming from Congress. Leadership in Congress in both the House and Senate has decided to move forward. But the funny thing is you know so often in the media we hear 'we want you to work together.' They are are working together but working together to spend a ton of money."

Republican leaders say Paul wanted a vote on an amendment that is critical of the overall agreement but leaders couldn't give him that vote even if they wanted to, because it requires consent from all senators.

The Senate's Majority whip sounded a bit frustrated by the holdup. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said he didn't know how long it would take to resolve the issue and said there are other procedural steps Paul could take to get a vote that leaders were talking to him about.

"Sen. Paul has some concerns he wants to be able to voice," Cornyn told reporters. "We're trying to work with him to help get that done."

Cornyn pointed out, "It takes unanimous consent to get an amendment."

"If we get one amendment up, you can imagine other people are going to have amendments," he said. "You can essentially accomplish the same thing by a point-of-order and get a vote. He doesn't need consent to do that. So that's an alternative we're going to suggest to him and work with him on."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, criticized Paul on Twitter.

"It appears 'General' @RandPaul is at it again. He just called for the immediate withdrawal of all forces from Afghanistan as a way to give the US military a pay raise," Graham tweeted . "Fortunately, only 'General' Paul -- and the Taliban - think that's a good idea."

This story has been updated and will continue to be updated with additional developments.</s>Lawmakers have eight legislative days to either a pass a budget or a sixth continuing resolution for fiscal 2018 before the March 23 deadline.

The deadline to avoid a third government shutdown this year is fast approaching. But unlike previous months, there’s more optimism in the air.

Congress already completed much of the more complicated work last month, when members passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. The budget act set spending caps for the next two years — at $300 billion higher than current levels — and extended current appropriations through March 23.

Lawmakers have spent the last four weeks finalizing appropriations for fiscal 2018, with the intent of packaging all 12 spending bills into one omnibus.

As long as that omnibus steers clear of any potential politically-divisive issues, Roll Call Senior Editor David Hawkings expects a relatively tame few weeks leading up to the March 23 deadline.

“The appropriators are talking about actually getting it done a few days ahead of schedule,” Hawkings told the Federal Drive with Tom Temin. “They are down to a very few issues. Negotiating these omnibuses is a little bit like a pyramid, where a vast majority of the decisions at the bottom are handled by… staffers on these various appropriations subcommittees. The ones they can’t agree on go to the members and then to the chairman and then to the leadership. Finally, the very, very pinnacle of the issues are really settled by the leadership and the White House. At this point, they’re down to just a couple of those.”

Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Subscribe to Federal Drive’s daily audio interviews on Apple Podcasts or PodcastOne.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) is also optimistic for the long term, if not slightly more cautious about a short term prediction.

After all, congressional leaders were confident in the days leading up to the passage of the latest CR they could avoid a second government shutdown. But last minute drama on the Senate floor forced another lapse in appropriations.

This time, the spending caps set in the Bipartisan Budget Act should bring more certainty, Connolly said.

“Having that number, and it’s at a higher level for both defense and domestic spending, gives us some breathing room and a little sense of predictability over the next year and a half,” he said Monday morning at the Federal Managers Association’s national convention in Alexandria, Virginia. “Bumping up against March 23, we may yet again not have everything worked out. … There could be a very small CR while we put the finishing touches on the omnibus, but I would expect an omnibus for the balance of the fiscal year.”

Connolly, meanwhile, is turning his attention to the familiar platter of challenges facing the federal workforce.

For the fourth consecutive year, Connolly offered an alternative pay raise for federal employees in the form of the Federal Adjustment of Incomes Rates (FAIR) Act. This time, the legislation calls for a 3 percent pay raise for 2019.

“Sometimes the press gets a little cynical, like, ‘You know that bill’s not going to pass.’ If we did nothing, then there’s no resistance at all,” Connolly said. “There’s no pressure to raise federal pay at all. By having that as a marker, we think we’ve actually been able to influence both the Obama and Trump White Houses on the subject of federal pay. We’re going to continue to do that on your behalf.”

The president’s 2019 budget proposal includes a pay freeze for civilian employees.

Connolly said he’s working with members of Congress to better educate them about their constituencies of federal employees, and he’s reminding them that the federal workforce has already had three years of frozen pay in recent years.

“When we have the opportunity to engage with my colleagues, most would ascent to the proposition that federal employees deserve a pay raise,” Connolly told reporters Monday morning. “Ideologues don’t care. Ideologues feel, ‘good enough for them to freeze their salaries.’ For other members it’s just not an issue, because it’s just not something that’s talked about in their districts. That’s why it’s so important we raise that level of dialogue back home.”

The president’s proposed cuts to the federal retirement system also has Connolly’s attention. The recommendations to increase employee pension contributions by 1 percent a year, eliminate the cost-of-living adjustment for participants in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS), base future retirement benefits on the highest five years of a worker’s salary and eliminate the special retirement supplement for employees over age 62 represent a “breach in contract,” Connolly said.

They’re also an attempt to make agencies more dysfunctional and less desirable places to work, he added. But Connolly believes he can help change the dialogue.

“If informed, if educated about who… federal employee[s are] and what do they do… I think that educational process would go a long way toward maybe softening some of the rhetoric and some of the actions my colleagues have taken,” he said.

The education process is a long one, but Connolly said he’s seen his colleagues change their votes in the past.

“We have a fight on our hands,” he said. “We’re up to it. We’ve been able to roll back or beat back a lot of this, but it’s a never ending process.”

Copyright © 2019 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.</s>Trump signs budget deal, bringing end to second gov’t shutdown of 2018

Washington, Feb 9 (EFE).- The president of the United States on Friday morning signed a combined funding and budget bill that was passed by Congress hours earlier and will increase federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, bringing an end to the second government shutdown this year.



Friday’s shutdown lasted just a few hours, while an earlier partial government shutdown in January was resolved after a three-day standoff.



“Just signed Bill. Our Military will now be stronger than ever before. We love and need our Military and gave them everything – and more. First time this has happened in a long time. Also means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!” Donald Trump wrote Friday morning on Twitter.



The legislative package assigns budget figures for the next two fiscal years but only funds the government until March 23. Lawmakers still need to work out a bipartisan spending plan covering the remainder of the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.



While praising the military spending, Trump lamented that Republicans were forced to compromise due to their slim majority in the Senate, where the GOP holds 51 seats and the Democrats 49.



Until Trump signed the bill, which the Senate passed with a vote of 71-28 and the House of Representatives approved by a count of 240-186, federal agencies were technically without funding.



The bill passed in the House thanks to the support of 73 Democrats and despite opposition from 67 Republican deficit-hawks.



The Senate and House eventually approved the package early Friday after Republican Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky had filibustered the vote on Thursday.



The libertarian-leaning lawmaker said GOP lawmakers who had railed against deficit spending under former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, suddenly were willing to increase spending by hundreds of billions of dollars now that a Republican is office.



He said their actions amounted to rank hypocrisy.



The funding and budget bill includes around $300 billion in extra spending for both military programs and domestic non-military programs such as health, infrastructure and disaster relief.



It also suspends the federal debt ceiling through March 1, 2019.

 But it does not include any solution for the so-called “Dreamers,” hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants who were brought to the US as children.</s>President Donald Trump signed a major budget plan into law Friday, ending the year's second government shutdown hours after it started.

Both chambers of Congress passed a short-term funding bill in the wee hours of Friday and cleared the way for a massive boost to military and domestic spending hours after funding lapsed at midnight. The government partially shut down for the second time in less than a month.

The massive legislation cleared Congress after opposition delayed or threatened its passage in both chambers. The House narrowly passed the budget bill by 240 to 186 before dawn Friday, then sent it to Trump.

Trump tweeted Friday morning that he signed the legislation.

"Just signed Bill. Our Military will now be stronger than ever before," the president wrote. "We love and need our Military and gave them everything — and more. First time this has happened in a long time. Also means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!"

Conservative and liberal lawmakers mounted resistance to the plan. Some GOP conservatives objected to increased spending and argued that it would recklessly increase budget deficits. Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats criticized the lack of a provision to protect hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.

The Senate approved the measure by a 71-28 vote early Friday following Sen. Rand Paul's repeated attempts to block the vote. The Kentucky Republican opposed the spending increases contained in the agreement and wanted to vote on an amendment to maintain budget caps.

The bill sets up a two-year, $300 billion boost in spending on military and domestic programs. It also extends the debt ceiling, authorizes nearly $90 billion more in aid for last year's string of natural disasters, gives funding to fight the opioid crisis and extends the popular Children's Health Insurance Program for an additional four years.</s>United States President Donald Trump on Friday signed a combined funding and budget bill that was passed by Congress hours earlier and will increase federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, bringing an end to the second government shutdown this year.Friday's shutdown lasted just a few hours, while an earlier partial government shutdown in January was resolved after a three-day standoff, Efe reported."Just signed Bill. Our Military will now be stronger than ever before. We love and need our Military and gave them everything - and more. First time this has happened in a long time. Also means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!" Donald Trump wrote Friday morning on Twitter.The legislative package assigns budget figures for the next two fiscal years but only funds the government until March 23. Lawmakers still need to work out a bipartisan spending plan covering the remainder of the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.While praising the military spending, Trump lamented that Republicans were forced to compromise due to their slim majority in the Senate, where the GOP holds 51 seats and the Democrats 49.Until Trump signed the bill, which the Senate passed with a vote of 71-28 and the House of Representatives approved by a count of 240-186, federal agencies were technically without funding.The bill passed in the House thanks to the support of 73 Democrats and despite opposition from 67 Republican deficit-hawks.The Senate and House eventually approved the package early Friday after Republican Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky had filibustered the vote on Thursday.The libertarian-leaning lawmaker said GOP lawmakers who had railed against deficit spending under former President Barack Obama , a Democrat, suddenly were willing to increase spending by hundreds of billions of dollars now that a Republican is office.He said their actions amounted to rank hypocrisy.The funding and budget bill includes around $300 billion in extra spending for both military programs and domestic non-military programs such as health, infrastructure and disaster relief.It also suspends the federal debt ceiling through March 1, 2019.But it does not include any solution for the so-called "Dreamers," hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants who were brought to the US as children.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump tweets that he has signed budget deal.</s>The Latest on Congress and spending legislation (all times local):

 

8:40 a.m.

 

President Donald Trump has signed the budget deal.

 

Trump tweets, "Just signed Bill. Our Military will now be stronger than ever before. We love and need our Military and gave them everything - and more. First time this has happened in a long time. Also means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!"

 

The House narrowly passed the budget accord in the pre-dawn hours, ending a brief government shutdown and clearing a path for huge spending increases for both the Pentagon and domestic programs.

 

Passage came over the objections Democratic leaders who demanded the promise of a vote to protect "Dreamer" immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.



___

 

5:30 a.m.

 

A band of tea party Republicans swung against the legislation as well, repelled by its spiraling spending levels.

 

The government shut down at midnight Thursday after Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul blocked plans for a quick Senate vote, blaming his fellow Republicans for being "complicit" in the looming return of trillion-dollar budget deficits.

 

__

 

1:50 a.m.

 

The Senate has passed a massive, bipartisan budget agreement and spending bill to reopen the shuttered federal government.

 

The bill now moves to the House.

 

Senators voted 71-28 to approve the deal, easily overcoming objections from Republican fiscal conservatives who say the bill marks a return to unchecked deficit spending.

 

The bill stalled in the Senate Thursday night when one of the opponents, Sen. Rand Paul, refused to allow a speedy vote.

 

Paul's protest forced Congress to miss a midnight deadline for passing a funding measure to keep the government operating.</s>WASHINGTON (CN) – President Donald Trump on Friday signed a $400 billion budget deal that sharply boosts spending and swells the federal deficit, just hours after last-minute opposition by congressional Democrats and teat party conservatives threatened to scuttle the deal.

Going into Thursday, congressional leaders appeared confident that the agreement to lift spending caps and fund the government through March 23 would help them avoid a second shutdown in less than a month, but Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., delayed the effort past a midnight deadline in the Senate by repeatedly objecting to requests to schedule a vote on the sweeping budget deal.

Paul, a Kentucky Republican who famously spent nearly 13 hours filibustering the nomination of former CIA Director John Brennan in 2013, first objected to a request from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to hold the vote at 6 pm. Paul instead embarked on an hour-long speech condemning Congress for not taking on government spending.

Paul was particularly critical of military and foreign spending during his speech, but also called on Congress to in general rein in what he called government excess.

“I ran for office because I was very critical of President Obama’s trillion dollar deficits,” Paul said after objecting to McConnell’s request. “Now we have Republicans hand-in-hand with Democrats, offering us trillion dollar deficits. I can’t in all good honesty, in all good faith, just look the other way because my party is now complicit in the deficits.”

The deal McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced on Wednesday would lift budget caps put in place as part of a 2011 agreement to raise the debt ceiling, as well as add equal amounts to the defense and nondefense budgets. The new bill raises the caps by $143 billion for fiscal year 2018 and by $153 billion in 2019, while also providing $6 billion to combat the opioid epidemic and fund mental health programs, $4 billion for veterans’ health care initiatives and $20 billion for infrastructure projects.

The budget agreement is attached to a short-term funding deal that will keep the government open until March 23.

“What makes Democrats proudest of this bill is that after a decade of cuts to programs that help the middle class, we have a dramatic reversal,” Schumer said in a statement after the bill passed the Senate. “Funding for education, infrastructure, fighting drug abuse, and medical research will all, for the first time in years, get very significant increases, and we have placed Washington on a path to deliver more help to the middle class in the future.”

McConnell gave Paul the opportunity to hold a procedural vote to find the deal in violation of Senate budgetary rules, but the libertarian Republican declined the offer.

Paul’s delay tactics ended around 1 am on Friday and the Senate overwhelmingly voted to end debate on the budget agreement and government funding package. The Senate then passed the bill around 2 am Friday with a 71-28 vote.

The House likewise approved the bill just after 5:30 am on Friday with a 240-186 vote.

“Ultimately, neither side got everything it wanted in this agreement, but we reached a bipartisan compromise that puts the safety and well-being of the American people first,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Ky., said in a statement after the vote. “Once the president signs this bill into law, we will have a clear path to pursue our ambitious agenda for 2018. I am excited and eager to get back to work doing big things for this country.”

While Republicans cast most of the votes against the bill in the Senate, Democrats mounted the strongest opposition in the House.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., came out against the deal on Wednesday because Ryan would not promise to hold a vote on immigration after it passed. President Donald Trump’s decision to end the program known as DACA that gave protection from deportation to people living in the country illegally who came to the United States as children takes effect on March 5, giving Congress a short window to pass an immigration bill.

McConnell promised to hold immigration votes in the Senate next week, and on Friday morning brought up a placeholder piece of legislation that will be allow lawmakers to offer competing immigration bills on the Senate floor when lawmakers return to Washington after the weekend. Ryan has given no such assurances, leading 119 House Democrats to vote against the funding bill.</s>It’s the biggest budget the Pentagon has ever seen: US$700 billion. That’s far more in defence spending than America’s two nearest competitors, China and Russia, and will mean the military can foot the bill for thousands more troops, more training, more ships and a lot else.

And next year it would rise to US$716 billion. Together, the two-year deal provides what Defence Secretary Jim Mattis says is needed to pull the military out of a slump in combat readiness at a time of renewed focus on the stalemated conflict in Afghanistan and the threat of war on the Korean peninsula.

The budget bill that President Donald Trump signed Friday includes huge spending increases for the military: The Pentagon will get US$94 billion more this budget year than last — a 15.5 per cent jump. It’s the biggest year-over-year windfall since the budget soared by 26.6 per cent, from US$345 billion in 2002 to US$437 billion the year after, when the nation was fighting in Afghanistan, invading Iraq and expanding national defence after the 9-11 attacks.

The extra money is not targeted at countering a new enemy or a singular threat like al-Qaida extremists or the former Soviet Union. Instead the infusion is being sold as a fix for a broader set of problems, including a deficit of training, a need for more hi-tech missile defences, and the start of a complete recapitalization of the nuclear weapons arsenal.

Every secretary of defence since 2011, when the Congress passed a law setting firm limits on military and domestic spending, has complained that spending caps set by the Budget Control Act were squeezing the military so hard that the number of ready-to-fight combat units was dwindling. Aging equipment was stacking up, troops were not getting enough training and the uncertain budget outlook was clouding America’s future.

“I cannot overstate the negative impact to our troops and families’ morale from all this budget uncertainty,” Mattis said just hours before the House and Senate approved the deal.

More money for the Pentagon, however, is not the simple solution some might think. Even with the spending caps of recent years, the defence budget has been robust by historical standards. Todd Harrison, a defence budget specialist at the Center for Security and International Studies, says military funding has been near the inflation-adjusted peak levels of the armed forces buildup during the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan.

The problem, Harrison says, is that the budgets have been stretched by rising personnel costs, more expensive technology investments and other factors, compounded by the cumulative effects of more than a decade of combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. And throughout this period, the military has been required to keep up or even increase its pace of operations at home and abroad — and there is no letup in sight.
• Watch: They did it again: U.S. government shuts down — this time a Republican allowed it to happen

“We are stretched too thin,” Harrison said Friday. “We are trying to do too much with the size force that we have all around the world. Money doesn’t necessarily fix that.”

The U.S. has far fewer troops in Iraq than it did 10 years ago, and the roughly 15,000 in Afghanistan today compare with a peak of 100,000 in 2010-11, but the trend is leaning in the opposite direction under President Donald Trump, including stepped up counterterrorism operations in Somalia and Yemen. Trump has added several thousand troops in Afghanistan. Also, the prospect of war against North Korea looms large as Trump insists on compelling the North to give up its nuclear weapons.

The enormous increases in defence spending agreed to by lawmakers on Friday go beyond what Trump ask for. Of the $700 million in spending for the 2018 budget year that started last October 1, about US$629 billion is for core Pentagon operations and nearly US$71 billion is for the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Trump had requested a 2018 military budget of US$603 billion for basic functions and US$65 billion for war missions.

The deal Congress approved early Friday also sets the Pentagon’s 2019 budget at US$716 billion, giving Mattis the financial stability he’s been demanding.

The biggest winners in the military buildup are the country’s largest defence contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics, that spend millions of dollars each year lobbying Congress.

The legislation that Trump signed Friday is expected to translate to billions more for one of the Pentagon’s highest priorities: missile defence. The appropriations committees still need to finalize exactly what will be in the 2018 defence budget. But they’re likely to follow closely the defence policy bill approved by Congress late last year. That included US$12.3 billion for the Pentagon’s Missile Defence Agency and ordered a more rapid buildup of the nation’s missile defences as North Korea has refused to back away from developing nuclear missiles capable of striking the United States.

The policy bill included money for as many as 28 additional Ground-Based Interceptors – anti-missile missiles that would be launched from underground silos in Alaska in the event the U.S. decided to try to shoot down a North Korean missile heading toward the United States. The bill also grants U.S. troops a 2.4 per cent pay raise, slightly higher than the Pentagon had proposed.

Before the budget deal was reached, Congress frequently resorted to the use of stopgap spending bills. Under these short-term measures, the Pentagon’s budget was locked at current year’s levels and the military services can be barred from starting new programs or ending old ones. The Pentagon complained that the stopgap approach forced them to shift dollars intended for new weapons and other needed equipment to pay for ongoing operations.</s>WASHINGTON (AP)Trump administration officials said they supported Senate passage of a budget deal that would funnel an additional $300 billion to the Pentagon and domestic programs over the next two years.

The presidential budget office officials said the agreement lays the groundwork for full funding of the military, a top priority for President Donald Trump.

The deal also spends more on other administration priorities, including infrastructure and the opioid drug epidemic.

Senate leaders worked to approve the measure and send it to the House for passage before the government begins to shut down at midnight, Thursday, Feb. 8.

Budget office officials said they would recommend to Trump he sign the measure into law if Congress sends it to him in its current form.
A comprehensive budget deal is later passed by Congress in the early hours of the morning, and a Continuing Resolution is signed into law by President Trump that keeps the government open until March 23, 2018.