Deal will avert fed shutdown

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Congressional negotiators reached agreement Thursday on a compromise spending bill to avert a weekend federal shutdown. They also worked toward a deal renewing the payroll-tax cut and unemployment benefits for another year but prepared a shorter version as a fallback in case talks fell short.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters that he was still optimistic that bipartisan talks on yearlong extensions of the payroll-tax cut and unemployment coverage would succeed. But as a “Plan B,” he said, they also were working on a two-month extension, which also would prevent cuts in Medicare reimbursements for doctors for that period.

Reid’s remarks put a slight damper on a day on which for the first time, Democratic and Republican leaders expressed optimism at prospects for swift compromise on their payroll-tax standoff and a spending battle that had threatened to shutter federal agencies beginning Saturday.

A deal on a $1 trillion spending bill was reached after Republicans agreed to drop language that would have blocked President Barack Obama’s liberalized rules on people who visit and send money to relatives in Cuba. But a GOP provision will stay in the bill thwarting an Obama administration rule on energy-efficiency standards that critics argued would make it hard for people to purchase inexpensive incandescent light bulbs.

The House is expected to approve the spending measure today, and the Senate could follow suit, possibly also today.