“The Senate Wednesday passed a bill to keep the government operating through September—a rare bipartisan compromise that is near certain to pass the House and avoid the budget brinkmanship that has often tied Congress in knots in recent years.
The bill, which was approved 73-26, leaves in place the mandate that $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts take affect across domestic and defense programs over the next six months but would soften the blow for some programs.
The compromise accommodated both House Republicans’ desire to bulk up the Pentagon’s budget for operations and maintenance, as well as Senate Democrats’ desire to shore up domestic programs such as nutrition aid for women and children and Head Start, an early-childhood-education program.
Even in such programs, the bill eases but doesn’t eliminate the impact of the cuts, known as a sequester.
During Senate debate on the bill, lawmakers of both parties sought—largely without success—to offer amendments to undo the effects of the sequester on pet programs. Sen. Jerry Moran (R., Kan.) pushed an amendment to prevent projected furloughs of air-traffic controllers, which he said could threaten to close many airports in rural areas—including seven in Kansas.
Democratic leaders refused to allow most such amendments, fearing that would open the floodgates for sequester exceptions. They said efforts to reverse the sequester would be addressed in Democrats’ 2014 budget resolution—a long-term plan for raising taxes and cutting spending that was brought to the Senate floor after the funding bill passed Wednesday…..”
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