Congress readies huge year-end spending bill

[Coventina]

Source: Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- Congressional negotiators sealed agreement Tuesday night on sweeping spending legislation that boosts housing and heating subsidies but curbs President Barack Obama's requests for aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The move comes as lawmakers wrapped the budgets of nine Cabinet agencies into a $1.1 trillion spending bill they hope to complete before a stopgap measure expires Dec. 18.

The measure would combine six of the dozen routine annual appropriations bills for the budget year that began Oct. 1. It combines a huge increase in foreign aid with an 18 percent cut to a program that helps states with the cost of incarcerating criminal illegal immigrants.


The proposal continues current policy that permits detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center to be transferred to the United States to stand trial but not to be released.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/09/AR2009120901174.html