(AP) Key aspects of the proposed budget agreement that covers the current fiscal year and the next.
- Eliminates automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, for defense and non-defense programs, and provides for spending increases for priorities in both categories.
- Increases spending for non-defense programs by $131 billion over the current and coming fiscal year.
- Increases spending for defense programs by $165 billion over two years.
- Suspends the government's cap on borrowing, or debt limit, through March 2019, eliminating the looming threat of a market-rattling default on U.S. obligations.
- Includes an additional $6 billion for fighting opioid addiction and boosting mental health services, $4 billion to improve health care for veterans, $20 billion for infrastructure improvements and $2 billion to support additional research at the National Institutes of Health.
- Extends dozens of expired tax breaks for economic development, energy production, and other odds and ends.
