Dec. 21 (UPI) — President Donald Trump signed a $1.4 trillion spending deal Friday, averting a government shutdown hours before a midnight deadline.
Trump signed the fiscal year 2020 appropriations legislation into law while aboard Air Force One en route to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., for the holidays, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere tweeted.
Last year Trump’s proposal to spend $5 billion to fund his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall was at the center of a record 35-day shutdown, but this year, funding came to about $1.38 billion.
The deal includes two spending packages with a total of 12 appropriations bills for the 2020 fiscal year that the Senate passed Thursday, one day before the deadline to fund the federal government.
The first package includes eight appropriations bills to fund Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Energy, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The second includes four bills to fund Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce-Justice-Science and Financial Services.
The spending deal repealed Affordable Care Act tax cuts, which a congressional committee reported Tuesday would cost the government $373.3 billion over two years to 10 years.
Total tax cuts — including extending expiring and expired tax breaks — amounted to $426 billion in lost revenue, which brings the total cost to more than $1.8 trillion.
Some other highlights were $7.6 billion in 2020 Census funding, a $208 million increase in EPA funding, a $22 billion increase in Department of Defense funding and a 3.1 percent pay raise for civilian federal employees.
