Bipartisan budget agreement nears final passage

A modest, bipartisan budget pact designed to avert another government shutdown and ease the harshest effects of automatic budget cuts is on the brink of passing the Senate.
The Democratic-led Senate is on track to clear the bill today for President Barack Obama's signature after a 67-33 vote yesterday in which it easily hurdled the 60-vote threshold under Senate rules to close debate and advance the measure to a final vote.
The budget bill easily passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives last week.
The measure would restore USD 45 billion, half the amount scheduled to be automatically cut from the 2014 operating budgets of the Pentagon and some domestic agencies, lifting them above USD 1 trillion. An additional USD 18 billion for 2015 would provide enough relief to essentially freeze spending at those levels for the year.

The budget deal marks a modest accomplishment for the divided and often dysfunctional Congress. It comes at the end of a chaotic year punctuated by a 16-day partial government shutdown spurred by Republicans in a futile attempt to curb implementation of Obama's health care reform law, brinksmanship over raising the federal debt limit to avert a default by the US Treasury, and congressional gridlock on issues ranging from immigration to gun control. ]
All that has taken a toll on the approval ratings of both Republicans and Democrats and Obama himself creating anxiety across the political spectrum over next year's elections when control of Congress will be at stake.

The bill advanced yesterday with the help of 12 Republicans, several of whom promised to oppose the measure in today's final vote because it fails to take on the nation's most pressing fiscal challenges.

It would barely dent deficits that are predicted to lessen in the short term but grow larger by the end of the decade and into the next. Democrats supported the measure, even though many were unhappy that the measure lacked an extension of long-term unemployment benefits that are due to expire for nearly 1.3 million Americans on Dec. 28.
One provision, cutting the inflation increases of pensions for military retirees under the age of 62, was proving to be especially unpopular among members of both parties.

Members of the military are eligible to retire after 20 years at half pay. The military pension cut was included in the bill at the direction of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who led the Republican side in the budget pact negotiations.