Senate passes stopgap, setting up bigger spending fight with House

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday morning to keep the federal government operating another two weeks and cut $4 billion from its budget. 

The vote was 91-9.

{mosads}Democratic senators expressed a litany of complaints with the short-term measure, but most were unwilling to vote against it and risk being seen as stubbornly resistant to spending cuts.
 
They also said they did not want to risk a government shutdown by squabbling over specific cuts, such as more than $500 million chopped from the Army Corps of Engineers.
 
Many Democrats were frustrated they could not pass a longer-term spending measure that would give government workers and contractors certainty and allow lawmakers to focus on patent reform, energy legislation and a jobs agenda.
 
“I will reluctantly support it,” Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee, said before the vote. “I think this kind of budgeting is the worst kind you can do. When you think about it, no household does it this way, no business does it this way, no state government does it this way.”
 
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) said he would attempt to move a longer-term stopgap spending measure.
 
“The House has come forward with two weeks. I personally feel that is rather inadequate,” he said. “They should give us a few more weeks.”

Those opposing the stopgap were Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho) Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Democratic colleagues vented over cuts in the two-week continuing resolution during a lunch meeting Tuesday.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee, balked at cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers, which she said would affect the construction of important infrastructure projects.
 
The two-week spending proposal cuts $2.7 billion in programs that House Republicans designated as earmarks, though some Senate Democrats disagree with using that label for some of the cuts, such as $40 million from Labor Department salaries and expenses.
 
The Senate vote came a day after the House voted 335-91 to approve the two-week continuing resolution.
 
The measure now goes to President Obama, who is expected to sign it. 

In a statement, he praised the measure’s passage but said “we can’t keep doing business this way.”

“Living with the threat of a shutdown every few weeks is not responsible, and it puts our economic progress in jeopardy,” he said.

He called on congressional leaders in both parties to begin meeting “immediately” with Vice President Biden, White House Chief of Staff William Daley and Budget Director Jack Lew to iron out an agreement to fund government for the rest of the fiscal year.

“This agreement should cut spending and reduce deficits without damaging economic growth or gutting investments in education, research and development that will create jobs and secure our future,” Obama said. “This agreement should be bipartisan, it should be free of any party’s social or political agenda, and it should be reached without delay.”
 
Reaching that agreement will undoubtedly bring a larger fight between the Senate and House in mid-March.
 
House Republicans are pressing Senate Democrats to accept $61 billion in cuts to the 2011 federal budget, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has dismissed that proposal as “unworkable” and “draconian.”
 
Senate Democrats have proposed a freeze to non-security discretionary spending, which would set spending levels $41 billion lower than Obama’s budget request for 2011.
 
But some centrists up for reelection say Democrats should cut more. Even so, they say, those cuts should reflect Democratic priorities and should be designed to have a minimal impact on needy families.
 
“It has to be significant cuts and it has to reflect the priorities we think are important,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who faces a tough race in 2012, said Tuesday. 

—Josiah Ryan contributed.

This post was updated at 12:00 p.m.