Obama ‘pleased’ to see $1.1T spending deal

The White House isn’t saying whether President Obama would sign the $1.1 trillion spending bill unveiled by House Republicans, but said Wednesday it was “pleased” that lawmakers appeared to be coalescing around a proposal that would avert a government shutdown.

“The last thing that we need are additional headwinds emanating from Capitol Hill,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “So we certainly are pleased that they seem to be coming around a proposal that would avoid exactly that.”

{mosads}Earnest said there were a number of provisions that the administration was “gratified” to see included in the spending package.

That includes “substantial resources” offered for the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as well as “significant” spending on the fight against the Ebola virus.

“We are certainly pleased by that,” Earnest said.

The package contains $64 billion in overseas contingency operations funding for the Pentagon, including $5 billion to fight ISIS and $5.4 billion to combat the Ebola epidemic.

The White House requested $5.6 billion for the campaign against ISIS and $6.2 billion to fight Ebola. The bill would prove $5 billion and $5.4 billion, respectively.

The White House also hailed “key funding proposals related to domestic priorities that will benefit the middle class,” including continued funding for early childhood education programs. And, Earnest said, the White House was heartened that Republicans were not successful in efforts to “undermine the president’s effort to reform our broken immigration system using executive actions and to cut carbon pollution.”

But the White House wouldn’t say whether any of the Republican victories in the bill would be deal-breakers, including a portion that would roll back parts of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Asked specifically about that section, Earnest said the White House was “still conducting a review” of the bill.

While saying “one of the president’s principle domestic policy achievements is the passage of Wall Street reform,” Earnest said he would “reserve judgment on the individual provisions.”

Similarly, Earnest said the administration was still reviewing cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, alterations to the school lunch program, and restrictions on D.C. home rule that prevents the local government from spending on abortion coverage or legalizing marijuana.

Earnest said that although the White House consulted with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle engaged in the negotiations ahead of the bill’s release, the White House lacked “granular” knowledge of the bill.

“I’ve seen some of these news reports, but this is a piece of legislation that is 1,600 pages long and we’ve had it for less than 16 hours,” Earnest said.

He said Obama could sign the bill even if it included provisions that he objected to, but the administration needed to preform a “full accounting.”

Asked about Rep. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-Md.) decision to oppose the bill, Earnest said congressional Democrats “should vote their conscience.”

“They should make their decision for themselves,” Earnest said, adding that the administration was “endeavoring to review this and hope we can have a clearer position on this specific legislation soon.”