NEWS PICKS
House Set to Approve $1.65 Trillion Spending Bill
$858 billion in military spending, $45 billion more than the White House had requested and up about 10% from $782 billion the prior year. It also includes $772.5 billion in nondefense discretionary spending, up almost 6% from $730 billion the prior year. The overall discretionary price tag works out to about $1.65 trillion, compared with $1.5 trillion the prior fiscal year.
Apply workplace accommodations to employees who had limitations based on pregnancy or childbirth and another that expanded workplace accommodations for breast-feeding.
With many lawmakers already home for the holidays, proxy voting is expected to be used heavily Friday in what could be the last time, as Republicans have vowed to stop the practice.
Lawmakers passed a $1.9 trillion spending bill in March 2021 intended to address the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crises that followed. No Republicans supported the legislation, which they said was wasteful and would fuel inflation.
In other actions, Congress passed a $280 billion bipartisan bill aimed at boosting U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and competitiveness with China.
Congress passed firearms legislation, also in a bipartisan manner. The bill put into law a requirement that background checks cover the juvenile and mental-health records of gun purchasers under 21 years of age. The measure will also encourage states to enact extreme risk protection orders, also known as red-flag laws, and imposes new criminal penalties on straw purchases, or buying a gun for someone not permitted to, and gun trafficking.
The congressional term, which started in January 2021, also saw new spending on the nation’s roads, clean water and broadband network through a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure package passed last year that included about $550 billion above projected federal spending.
CHRISTMAS
