The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 (, ), also known as the 2016 omnibus spending bill, is the
United States appropriations legislation passed during the 114th Congress which provides spending permission to a number of federal agencies for the fiscal year of 2016. The bill authorizes $1.1 trillion in spending, as well as $700 billion in tax breaks.
The bill provides funding to the federal government through September 30, 2016.
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The legislation contains the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015.
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History
The bill began as a $78 billion spending bill for Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, one of the twelve subcommittees of the US Senate Committee on Appropriations. The bill first passed the US House of Representatives on April 30, 2015, by a vote of 255–163, largely along party lines.budget sequestration
Budget sequestration is a provision of United States law that causes an across-the-board reduction in certain kinds of spending included in the federal budget. Sequestration involves setting a hard cap on the amount of government spending with ...
. The bill remained in the US Senate for several months, deliberately stalled by Senate Democrats.
Facing a possible government shutdown on September 30, 2015 (the end of fiscal year 2015), Congress passed the ''Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2016'' hours before the deadline, funding the government until December 11. Republican congressional leaders and President Obama on October 26 reached a tentative deal that would modestly increase spending over two years while cutting some social programs. The Senate voted on the bill on November 10, 2015, passing it unanimously, 93–0. As the new December 11 deadline approached, Congress actively negotiated a wider omnibus bill
An omnibus bill is a proposed law that covers a number of diverse or unrelated topics. ''Omnibus'' is derived from Latin and means "to, for, by, with or from everything". An omnibus bill is a single document that is accepted in a single vote by ...
built on top of the original bill. Congress passed two additional temporary extensions, pushing the deadline back to December 16, and then to December 22.
The bill entered into law on December 18, 2015. The bill ended up largely as a compromise between centrist Republicans and moderate Democrats; the scope of the bill's spending was heavily criticized by the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
Provisions
The bill provides general spending for most of the US federal government. The bill included a larger than expected $19.3 billion in funding for NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
.
Tax cuts included delaying implementation of taxes on premium health care plans, as well as upcoming taxes on medical devices.
Unrelated policy riders included ending a 40-year-old ban on US exports of crude oil. The bill also included the provisions of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, information sharing cyber-security legislation.
See also
* 2015 United States federal appropriations
* United States budget sequestration in 2013
* Planned Parenthood 2015 undercover videos controversy
References
External links
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016
as amended
PDFdetails
in the GPObr>Statute Compilations collection
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016
as enacted
PDFdetails
in the US Statutes at Large
* {{USBill, 114, hr, 2029 on Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the online database of United States Congress legislative information. Congress.gov is a joint project of the Library of Congress, the House, the Senate and the Government Publishing Office.
Congress.gov was in beta in 2012, and ...
United States federal appropriations legislation
Acts of the 114th United States Congress