Congress Reaches Deal on Spending Bill

[Content Note: Class warfare.]

Last night, Congress reached a tentative agreement on a $1.1 trillion spending bill "that would end the threat of a year-end government shutdown and fund federal agencies through most of 2016." And, naturally, it's bipartisan garbage. Everyone loses! Unless you're rich, of course. The good news is that federal employees will keep getting paid.

Details of the massive bill had still not been posted online by the House or Senate appropriations committees late Tuesday, but House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told GOP members that an agreement had been reached. Democratic leaders cautioned that final details were still being worked out.

Funding to keep the government running is set to expire at midnight Wednesday. Ryan said lawmakers will vote Wednesday on an extension to keep the government open until Dec. 22. That gives Congress time to approve a long-term bill to fund agencies through September.

Ryan promised that there will be no government shutdown and said the House will vote Thursday on a long-term agreement. The Senate will vote on Thursday or Friday, just in time for Congress to adjourn for the holidays.

Republicans wrangled with Democrats over proposed policy riders on issues ranging from the environment to the Syrian refugee crisis.

"We didn't win everything we wanted," Ryan said on Fox News, without offering details. "Democrats got some things they wanted. So that's the nature of compromises in divided government. But all told, we'll make sure that we keep government funded and that we advance some of our priorities and, namely, that's to create jobs."

And of course they'll be "creating jobs" by extending massive tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, to the tune of $750 billion.

Ryan said that extending tax breaks for businesses will help create jobs.

"We're going to have some good things in here for job creators," he said. "We're going to have good tax policy that helps send us in the right direction for tax reform, that helps provide certainty for businesses."

We already know, because it has been repeatedly demonstrated over and over at the expense of poor and working class people, that trickle-down economics doesn't fucking work. And, as of October 2013, 10% of the companies on the S&P 500 already had an effective tax rate of 0%.

These tax breaks to corporations and wealthy individuals aren't an incentive to "create jobs." They're an enticement to corporations whose massive profits will remain unchanged and wealthy individuals whose passive earnings will keep making them richer to keep funding the Republican Party.

And they're an excuse for the Republican Party to justify cuts to federal social programs because there isn't enough revenue to fund them.

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said last week that extending the tax breaks would cost the U.S. Treasury billions of dollars that could be better used for social programs for struggling Americans.

Ellison said it is part of a long-term Republican strategy to shrink government. With huge tax breaks in place, "It will be harder for us to pay for things next year," he said.

"We're not getting any new revenue so what is there left to do but cut, cut, cut?" said Ellison, who is co-chairman of the House Progressive Caucus.

This is what class warfare looks like.