U.S. Congress passes tax and trade bills
Source: Reuters
(Updates with Senate passage) By Donna Smith WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - As the Republican-led Congress rushed to adjourn, the U.S. Senate on Saturday sent President George W. Bush legislation to normalize trade with former enemy Vietnam, renew popular tax cuts and open the Gulf of Mexico to new oil and gas drilling. The economic package was one of one of several bills Republican leaders cleared before Democrats take control of the new Congress to be seated in January. The Senate's 79-9 vote came shortly after the U.S. House of Representatives approved the measures. Congress also passed a bill that would help clear the way for nuclear-armed India to buy U.S. nuclear reactors and fuel for the first time in 30 years. And rushing to beat a Friday midnight deadline, the House and Senate approved a money bill to keep the government running into next year. Republicans are leaving nine of 11 spending bills that finance various government programs for the new Democratic-led Congress to finish. The stopgap spending bill was therefore needed to avoid a government shutdown. COST OBJECTIONS Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg failed in an attempt to kill the tax bill because of a $40 billion five-year price tag to the federal treasury. Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, said the total could top $50 billion over 10 years. The package would extend tax breaks for research and development, education, state and local sales taxes and other popular causes. It will also cancel a scheduled Medicare pay cut for doctors next year and open some 8.3 million acres (3.4 million hectares) in the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Florida to new oil and gas drilling. "It has in it a large amount of items which have nothing to do with extending taxes and have a lot to do with personal interests of various groups around this country who have the capacity to get things in bills," Gregg said in a Senate speech. "You must have to ask yourself how we as a party got to this point when we have a leadership that is going to ram down our throats ... the biggest budget buster in the history of this Congress, under Republican leadership," he said. Even as Gregg raised his objections, the House overwhelmingly passed the tax measure, 367-45, and the trade package, 212-184. The trade and tax bills were merged into one bill to help ease passage in the Senate after objections from Gregg and eight other senators who said a trade measure affecting Haiti would replace about $200 million in sales of U.S. yarn and fabric to the Caribbean nation with cheap supplies from China. The trade measure would set aside Cold War restrictions on trade with Vietnam and clear the way for U.S. farmers, bankers and other businesses to share in the market-opening benefits of Hanoi's entry into the World Trade Organization next month. (Additional reporting by Missy Ryan)
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