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Budget nearly done

Congress to vote Thursday on deal

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders are girded to push a compromise on tax cuts and spending through the House and Senate by week’s end after Republicans and Democrats reached agreement on a legislative package extending dozens of tax breaks for businesses and families and financing 2016 government operations.

A series of votes set for Thursday, culminating the process, would be Congress’ coda to a tumultuous 2015.

Despite dissenters in both parties, passage was likely and President Barack Obama’s signature seemed assured for an accord bearing victories for everyone from oil companies and working-class families to 9/11 emergency workers and biomedical researchers.

“This is divided government,” Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., said of the measures, which together totaled about 2,200 pages.

With temporary financing of federal agencies expiring today at midnight, congressional leaders planned to approve a stop-gap bill preventing a government shutdown through next Tuesday, giving lawmakers time to finish the long-term spending legislation.

The two-part compromise announced Tuesday included a $1.1 trillion measure funding federal agencies in the 2016 federal budget year that started Oct. 1. A separate bill, roughly estimated at around $650 billion over the next decade, renews around 50 business and individual tax breaks that have expired or are about to lapse.

As their top triumph, Republicans cited a lifting of the nation’s ban on crude oil exports, imposed 40 years ago during chronic oil shortages. Democrats won five-year extensions of credits for wind and solar energy producers and a renewal of a land and water conservation fund.

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