The Sentate on Aug. 1 passed the House-passed Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 (H.R. 3877) by a vote of 67-28, which now awaits the president’s signature. The measure would suspend the debt ceiling through July 31, 2021, and would revise discretionary spending caps in FYs 2020 and 2021. If enacted, the revised spending cap for FY 2020 would avert $55 billion in cuts to nondefense discretionary (NDD) spending that would occur under the statutory Budget Control Act cap and would represent a $24.5 billion (4.1%) increase over the comparable funding level in the FY 2019 spending bills.
