Budget agreement adds money for defence, infrastructure

Key aspects of the proposed budget agreement that covers the current fiscal year and the next.

— Eliminates automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, for defence and non-defence programs, and provides for spending increases for priorities in both categories.

— Significantly increases spending for non-defence programs by $131 billion over the current and coming fiscal year.

— Significantly increases spending for defence 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.

— Provides almost $90 billion in disaster relief, mostly for hurricane-hit Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

—Creates new congressional panels to come up with a legislative fix for millions of pensioners facing cuts to their benefits and to reform the congressional budget process.

— Extends the Children’s Health Insurance Plan for 10 years, up from six years under a previous agreement.

—Extends funding for community health centres serving the poor for two years.

— 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.

—Extends numerous technical provisions related to health care, Medicare, and Medicaid.

— Provides additional funding for constituent services at the Social Security Administration and for the Internal Revenue Service, which is implementing the new tax-cut law.