Spending Deal Blows Through Budget Limits

“Congressional negotiators introduced a sweeping year-end spending and tax-break package early Wednesday that busts through previously agreed budget limits with $66 billion in new spending for 2016 and that makes permanent an array of tax benefits at a cost of adding more than a half-trillion dollars to the deficit,” the New York Times reports.

“While Republican leaders in Congress characterized the year-end package as representing a hard-fought compromise that would keep the government open and provide large-scale investment and tax breaks, it poses a challenge for Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, who had promised a more open and inclusive legislative process.”