Congress is planning to use spending bills that must pass this week to repeal Obamacare taxes, raise the tobacco purchasing age to 21 and extend the U.S. Export-Import Bank for seven years, according to a senior House Democratic aide familiar with the talks.
The negotiations are continuing, the aide said. The bills need to be finalized Monday for the House and Senate to have time to pass them before federal funding expires on Friday.
These taxes, which have been delayed previously, highlight the conflicting forces pulling at Democrats in Congress, who are keen to support the Affordable Care Act but also wary of raising taxes on heath care costs.
The repeals would be attached to two packages of spending to provide the $1.4 trillion needed to avoid a shutdown of the U.S. government after Dec. 20 and to operate federal agencies through next September.
The bills are the result of weeks of bipartisan talks between Democratic and Republican lawmakers and the White House. The House plans to vote Tuesday, with the Senate voting before the Friday deadline.
The White House has not explicitly supported the bills, although President Donald Trump is expect to sign them and avoid a repeat of the 35-day shutdown earlier this year sparked by his demands for border wall funding. The government is currently running on a temporary stopgap spending bill because none of the 12 annual appropriations bills had been enacted by the Oct. 1 start of fiscal 2020.
Tobacco, Ex-Im Bank, Miner Pensions
The government spending deal would raise the age to purchase tobacco to 21. It does not include a compromise on surprise billing or prescription drugs. However, because some health-related funding will run out on May 22 under this deal, Democrats are hoping to use that deadline to revisit drug pricing as part of a broader health care compromise.
The plan also includes measures to reduce prices of generic pharmaceutical drugs, by making it easier for companies to compete to produce generic medicines.
In addition to reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank, the measure would direct the bank to assist exports that compete with China.
The deal would also extend the National Flood Insurance Program’s authorization to Sept. 30 and the Terrorism Risk Insurance program for seven years.
The spending agreement includes the Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019 to prevent insolvency of the 1974 UMWA Pension Plan. Further, this provision extends health retirement benefits to miners impacted by coal company bankruptcies that took place in 2018 and 2019.
Without this provision, 92,000 coal miners’ pensions and the health care benefits for 13,000 miners would have been at risk. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin said last week he would delay all Senate business until the miner’s provision was inserted into the funding package.
Lawmakers are also negotiating other tax measures to include in the must-pass spending bills. Those could affect biodiesel, alcoholic beverages and short-line railroads