Highlights of House tax and spending bill, and Senate war funding measure

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Highlights of House and Senate spending bills

A $58.8 billion measure funding the president’s Afghanistan troop surge passed the Senate on Thursday. But a $143 billion package of spending and tax cuts was being rewritten by House leaders after rank-and-file protests about the budget deficit.

Highlights of the Senate war-funding legislation:

—$33.5 billion for the Pentagon to fund President Barack Obama’s 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan and other costs.

—$5.1 billion to replenish federal disaster aid accounts.

—$6.2 billion for State Department diplomatic operations and foreign aid, including for allies in the war on terror such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

—$13.4 billion to pay disability pensions for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

Highlights of House tax and spending legislation:

TAXES

—Extends for one year about $32 billion in tax breaks that expired in January, including a property tax deduction for people who don’t itemize, lucrative credits that help businesses finance research and develop new products, and a sales tax deduction that mainly helps people in states without income taxes.

—Increases taxes on investment and hedge fund managers, venture capitalists and many real estate investment partnerships by $18.7 billion.

—Increases taxes on oil companies by $11.8 billion by raising from 8 cents a barrel to 34 cents a barrel the tax they pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

—Raises taxes on multinational companies some $14.5 billion by limiting their ability to use credits for paying foreign taxes to lower their U.S. tax liability.

—Imposes $11.2 billion in new Medicare taxes on lawyers, doctors and other service providers.

SPENDING

—$39.5 billion to continue unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless through November. In a majority of states, the unemployed could receive benefits for up to 99 weeks.

—$4.6 billion to settle long-running class-action lawsuits brought by black farmers and American Indians. One lawsuit concerned the government’s management and accounting of more than 300,000 trust accounts of American Indians. The other is a discrimination lawsuit brought by black farmers against the Agriculture Department.

—$4 billion to expand the Build America Bonds program, which subsidizes interest costs paid by local governments when they borrow for construction projects.

—$1.5 billion in relief for farmers who suffered crop damage from natural disasters in 2009.

—$1 billion for summer jobs programs, for workers ages 16 to 21.

Provisions dropped by House Democratic leaders in response to deficit concerns:

—$24 billion for states to help cover Medicaid costs.

—$6.8 billion to provide health insurance subsidies to the jobless under the COBRA program.

—$22 billion to provide a 19-month reprieve from a scheduled 21 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors.