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Congress Passes Omnibus Budget Bill

 Virginia lawmakers were divided on the legislation to fund the government. 

Only 113 House members voted against the bill to keep the government funded through next September. Six of those Republican no votes are from the commonwealth, which means more Virginian House members opposed it than supported it. For fiscal conservative Republican Congressman Dave Brat says the one point one trillion dollar price tag of the package was just too much.

“Just on the budget numbers alone I made commitments alone.” 

But Brat says he couldn’t vote for it because leaders stripped out a provision to hit a pause button on the Syrian refugee program.

“It used to be economics, budget, etc. But now the national security concern is eclipsing that by far.”

But this is Virginia after all and without the deal the government would be shut down right now. That was enough to win the support of Virginia Democrat Don Beyer

“First of all we keep the government open, which is a very good thing for northern Virginia and the country.”

But the legislation also includes a lot for Virginia families and businesses. It extends or makes permanent tax breaks for parents with children, college students, those who use mass transit to commute to work, and for school teachers who use their own money to pay for classroom supplies.  Beyer says even though Democrats are in the minority, the bill had their fingerprints all over it.

“There’s a lot of things in it that we wanted.”

But Democrats also held their nose and supported it. Northern Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly says the bill underfunded the I-R-S and E-P-A. He says the continued I-R-S cuts make it so the agency leaves around $350 billion dollars in taxes uncollected.  

“To be collected. Owed to the government - that it is not collected for want of resources. Over 10 years that’s 3.5 Trillion; that’d be a good down payment. I thought you cared about that?”

The deal included more than six hundred billion dollars in tax reform, which Virginia

Democratic Senator Mark Warner says isn’t necessarily a good thing. He supports many of those provisions but would have liked if they were included next year in a broader attempt to overhaul the entire tax code.

“As someone who believes strongly, to keep America competitive, we need an international tax reform, if we take things off the table now, the ability to erring those back, to get the kind of comprehensive tax reform we need on the long haul, makes those challenges more difficult.”

“I respectfully disagree with that.”

That’s Virginia Republican Congressman Scott Rigell.  He says while significant, the deal still leaves Congress plenty to do next year.

 “To me this was maybe affecting 4-5% of the overall tax code. Some would argue that it’s more significant than that, but I see it as about that amount. And if you do the math according to me there’s about 95% left to work on.”

But Rigell says one of the biggest reasons he supports the bill is because of the certainty it provides for Virginia’s defense industry.

“Principally because of the continuity and stability it provides to our defense budget. The principle role of the federal government is to protect us.”

The legislation allowed businesses and government planners across the commonwealth to breathe a sigh of relief around the holiday season. Lawmakers are hoping over the next year they’ll be able to provide certainty by doing smaller spending bills instead of a massive, catch all bill at the last minute.

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