Shutdown averted

WASHINGTON – The House passed a spending bill Tuesday to fund the government for six weeks, delaying a series of battles over spending and policy that include everything from labor law and environmental regulations to abortion and the Pentagon budget.

The 352-66 vote sent the measure to President Barack Obama in time to avert a government shutdown at midnight. That ended a skirmish over disaster aid that seemed to signal far more trouble ahead as Obama and a bitterly divided Congress begin working on ironing out hundreds of differences, big and small, on a $1 trillion-plus pile of 12 unfinished spending bills.

Fifty-three Republicans defected on the measure, which was calibrated to spend money at rates equal to an August budget deal between Congress and Obama that permits too much spending for many tea party conservatives.

For weeks officials fought over disaster aid after the House insisted that $1 billion in emergency aid for victims of Hurricane Irene and other natural disasters should have been offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget. House and Senate Democrats strongly opposed the idea, particularly over House GOP cuts to a loan guarantee program that helps automakers retool factories to meet new fuel economy standards.

But a face-saving compromise last week – the Senate dropped both the $1 billion in aid and the cuts to clean energy programs – paved the way for Tuesday’s vote. Debate lasted just minutes.

“We need to keep the doors of the government open to the American people who rely on its programs and services,” said the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky. “Furthermore, our economy cannot handle the instability that comes with the threat of a government shutdown.”

A far more difficult task loomed: passing the 12 annual spending bills that lay out the day-to-day operating budgets for Cabinet agencies and departments.

On one hand, the task was made easier by the fact that the GOP-controlled House, the Democratic-run Senate and the president were in agreement on an overall $1 trillion-plus budget for the day-to-day operations of government agencies. The August budget deal restored $24 billion in cuts sought by Republicans in their April budget, but the overall budget “cap” remained slightly below levels for the 2011 budget year that ended Sept. 30.

Still, there remained plenty of disagreement over which programs should be increased and which should be cut the deepest.

Republicans were pressing big cuts to foreign aid and to preserve some budget gains for the Pentagon; Democrats and Obama wanted more money for domestic programs like job training, Pell Grants and heating subsidies for the poor.

To make the bills appealing to conservatives despite higher-than-hoped spending levels, House Republicans were using the bills to attack Obama’s policies on health care and financial services, environmental regulations and labor rules. GOP lawmakers also were fighting on behalf of conservative social policies such as eliminating federal aid for family planning and barring health care plans for federal workers from covering abortions.

The short-term measure set a Nov. 18 deadline to wrap up the unfinished spending bills.