(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) US President Barack Obama supports "a compromise proposal" on the appropriations in the budget bill for the fight against Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday.
"The president on a number of occasions has expressed his concern about economic headwinds emanating from Congress and that there is a significant benefit associated with Congress acting responsibly to pass a budget without the threat of a shutdown and to do so over an extended period of time, over a full year, because it provides the kind of certainty that's important to our economy. "And that is among the reasons why the president supports the passage of this compromise proposal and would sign it if it arrives on his desk," Earnest said in his daily press briefing.
"Let me describe to you a number of the things that are included in this proposal that we believe merit the president's support. They essentially fall in three categories. "The first category is over the course of this year the president, on at least a couple of different occasions, made specific requests for urgent national security-related items. "The first is the president sought substantial funding to support our efforts to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and to improve our domestic readiness here at home. "The proposal includes USD 5.4 billion to fight Ebola. And that certainly is a development that we are pleased to see," he pointed out.
"The proposal also includes substantial funding, at the president's request, to support our ongoing efforts to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL," he said, adding: "So we are pleased that there are substantial resources included in this legislation to fight Ebola and to fight ISIL." "The second category are a range of domestic policy priorities that the president has identified that are supported in this piece of legislation. "There is strong support for the president's early childhood education proposal. There's USD 750 million in funding to make progress against the goal that the president has set out, which is expanding access to high-quality early childhood education programs for every child in America. "This USD 750 million funding level locks in a funding increase that was originally agreed to last year, so we certainly are pleased to see the financial support for those programs continue," Earnest went on.
"The second domestic priority is - Wall Street reform. This funding proposal includes double-digit increases for both the CFTC and the SEC. These are two independent regulatory agencies that have a very important role to play and now a larger role to play as a result of the passage of Wall Street reform in terms of protecting the stability of our financial system and of the US economy.
"Importantly, on previous pieces of must-pass legislation we've seen Republicans attempt to add ideological riders that would essentially gut the authority of the CFPB," he stated. "The CFPB is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is something that the president fought for and created as a result of the Wall Street reform legislation. He believes it's important for consumers to have a voice in Washington. That's exactly what the CFPB does. "The third priority that we are pleased to see is receiving the appropriate level of funding in this compromise proposal is related to our efforts to fight climate change. "There are no riders included in this legislation that would significantly impair our ability to make progress against some of these climate priorities the president's identified. "The president has identified these priorities because it's good for the health and safety of the American people, it's good for our ongoing efforts to fight climate change, and it's good for the economy.
"And those two areas are the Affordable Care Act and immigration. And this compromise proposal does not include riders that would significant gut the president's ability to implement the Affordable Care Act or to implement the executive actions that would reform our broken immigration system.
"So those are the reasons that we believe that - those are just some of the reasons that we believe that this compromise proposal merits bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and hopefully will arrive on the president's desk in the next few days," Earnest concluded.
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