The House and Senate approved two-year $2.7 trillion budget measure went to the White House on Friday where it received the president’s signature without ceremony, Roll Call reported.
The Senate cleared the bill last Thursday after the House passed it on July 25. It would add $324 billion to spending limits over the next two fiscal years, not including an additional $157 billion mainly for overseas military operations.
Nearly $77 billion of the new spending is offset, but the spending reductions don’t go into effect until fiscal 2027. The offsets are about half of what the White House originally sought in its negotiations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) for a comprehensive budget deal earlier this summer.
The bill, which also suspends the debt ceiling until July 31, 2021, sets a FY 2020 defense topline of $738 billion and a FY 2021 defense topline of $740.5 billion. It also increases nondefense spending for FY 2020 to $632 billion and increases it again to $634 billion in FY 2021, as On Base has reported.
The White House has embraced the deal because it features higher military spending while increasing nondefense funding that can be directed for administration priorities like border security and health care.