The House and Senate last week sent to the president a two-year, bipartisan budget agreement, The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (House vote 266-167; Senate vote 64-35). President Obama signed the bill today.
According to The National Law Review – in addition to suspending the debt limit through March 15, 2017, the proposal raises sequestration-level discretionary budget caps by $80 billion over two years – $50 billion in FY 2016 and $30 billion in FY 2017 – equally divided between defense and nondefense programs:
- FY 2016 Defense – from $523 billion to $548 billion
- FY 2016 Nondefense – from $493.5 billion to $518.5 billion
The agriculture change in the bill would cut payments to crop insurance companies, but congressional leaders have pledged not to make those cuts. Appropriators will now focus their efforts on reconciling the House and Senate appropriations bills.
“The appropriators are going to have to do their job; they’re going to have to come up with spending bills,” Obama said at the signing ceremony. “But this provides them the guidepost and the baseline with which to do that.”
In other Congressional news, Rep. Paul Ryan (R) of Wisconsin was elected as the 54th Speaker of the House, succeeding Speaker John Boehner. Ryan received 236 of the 432 votes cast. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) of California received 184 votes.
