Thursday, December 17, 2015 – 10:00 a.m.

The year-end wrap-up continues to move through the legislative process. The House of Representatives will vote today on the tax extenders bill and will vote on Friday on the omnibus appropriations package. The reason for the delay is the House’s “three-day layover” rule, adopted in 1970. It originally applied to days after items were printed in the Congressional Record but now refers to the calendar day on which a measure is made available on the Internet. Because the legislative text of the tax package was posted online at 11:57 p.m. Tuesday night, Tuesday is day 1, Wednesday is day 2 and Thursday is day 3, allowing a House vote today. But the omnibus appropriations measure was not ready by midnight and was filed 97 minutes later, at 1:34 a.m. Wednesday, Wednesday is day 1, Thursday is day 2 and Friday is day 3.

Last night, the House Rules Committee approved a special rule for House consideration of the total package. If the House passes the rule this morning, there will be one hour of debate on the tax extenders package and a vote (no amendments), then tomorrow there will be one hour of debate on the omnibus appropriations package (only one amendment, a technical one, and that one is automatically adopted with no vote) and a final vote. Then both measures will move to the Senate as House amendments attached to an unrelated appropriations measure, and the Senate will then hold a vote on agreeing to both House amendments next week.

The Congressional Budget Office has released its score of the omnibus appropriations measure and the Joint Committee on Taxation has released its score of the tax extenders bill and its score of the tax provisions in the omnibus measure. Put it all together and you get $1.15 trillion in FY 2016 appropriations and then you get tax provisions and a few other direct spending provisions that total $680 billion in PAYGO costs over ten years.

So the package that will presumably reach the President’s desk next week will have a total cost of $1.83 trillion. With a “T.” The White House has released a Statement of Administration Policy in support of the legislation.

As a reminder, all transpo budget wonks should have bookmarked Eno’s FY 2016 Budget and Appropriations Reference Page by now. The information is in rough chronological order, so you can scroll all the way to the bottom for constantly updated materials related to the omnibus fiscal package.