House passes spending bill

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Swapping crisis for compromise, the House narrowly approved $1.1 trillion in governmentwide spending Thursday night after President Barack Obama and Republicans joined forces to override Democratic complaints that the bill also would ease bank regulations imposed after the economy’s near-collapse in 2008.

The 219-206 vote cleared the way for a final showdown in the Senate on the bill — the last major measure of a two-year Congress far better known for gridlock than for bipartisan achievement.

Hours before the vote, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi delivered a rare public rebuke to Obama, saying she was “enormously disappointed” he had decided to embrace legislation that she described as an attempt at blackmail by Republicans.

The White House stated its own objections to the bank-related proposal and other portions of the bill in a written statement. Even so, officials said Obama and Vice President Joe Biden both telephoned Democrats to secure the votes needed for passage, and the president stepped away from a White House Christmas party reception line to make last-minute calls.

In addition to the government funding, the bill also sets a new course for selected, highly shaky pension plans.

Despite the day’s drama, 57 Democrats supported the bill, including two of the top three party leaders and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who doubles as the chair of the Democratic National Committee.

The outbreak of Democratic bickering left Republicans in the unusual position of bystanders rather than participants with the federal government due to run out of funds at midnight.

Even so, there was no threat of a shutdown in federal services — and no sign of the brinkmanship that marked other, similar episodes. Instead, the House passed a measure providing a 48-hour extension in existing funding to give the Senate time to act on the larger bill.

Said a relieved Speaker John Boehner: “Thank you and merry Christmas.”

Hours before the mid-evening final vote, conservatives had sought to torpedo the measure because it would leave Obama’s immigration policy unchallenged. Boehner patrolled the noisy, crowded House floor looking for enough GOP converts to keep it afloat.

He found them — after the vote to move ahead on the bill went into overtime — in retiring Rep. Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan as well as Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana. The vote was 214-212.

Even so, Republican defections required Boehner and supporters of the measure to seek Democratic votes for passage. “Remember this bill was put together in a bicameral, bipartisan way,” he said. Officials in both parties said Pelosi was fully informed of the bill’s contents before it was released to the public, and did not signal her opposition.

At the heart of the impasse over the spending bill is a provision involving the sorts of high-risk investments that ignited the 2008 financial crisis.

The dispute occurred after Republicans inserted into the bill a provision to relax the regulation of investments known as derivatives. Democrats, led by Pelosi, have demanded that the provision be removed. They argue that it would let big banks gamble with depositors’ federally insured money and could make it likelier that banks, if undone by their risky bets, would need another taxpayer bailout.

The provision is part of a broader Republican drive to erode the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, which Congress enacted in 2010 to try to tighten regulation and prevent another crisis. Republicans have denounced Dodd-Frank as an excessive expansion of regulatory authority that’s stifling the competitiveness of the U.S. financial industry.