WASHINGTON – Congress has sent President Barack Obama a bipartisan spending bill that averts a federal shutdown, but widespread Republican defections underscore rifts between the party’s conservatives and pragmatists.
The legislation, passed Thursday, will keep all federal agencies functioning through Dec. 16, giving lawmakers more time to complete their tardy budget work.
The bill also finances five Cabinet-level agencies through the rest of the government’s budget year, which runs through next September. Lawmakers still have to write nine of the 12 annual spending bills for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, covering giant agencies like the Pentagon and the Health and Human Services Department.
But Thursday’s votes highlighted the problems the party will have winning support for those bills, and deeper GOP divisions that extend to taxes and deficit reduction.
The compromise bill cleared Congress easily. Senate passage was by 70-30 and House approval was 298-121, with nearly all Democrats in both chambers supporting the measure.
Among Republicans, it was far different. GOP senators tilted against the legislation 30-17, while House Republicans backed it by a narrow 133-101 margin.
“We need real cuts, not minuscule cuts and certainly not increases,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who voted against passage.
Because Republicans knew that Democratic support for
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