Obama urges passage of $1.1T spending bill

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama on Friday urged the Senate to ratify a $1.1 trillion, House-passed spending bill that has roiled his Democratic Party, judging it an imperfect measure that stems from “the divided government that the American people voted for.”

One day after House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi publicly chastised him for supporting the bill, the president said there were provisions “I really do not like.” At the same time, he said there were other portions that “fund health insurance, early childhood education, the fight against climate change and expand manufacturing hubs to grow jobs.”

He offered his assessment as Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid also announced support for the legislation, further underscoring the split inside the party. The Democrats will lose control of the Senate in January because of heavy losses in midterm elections last month and will go deeper into a House minority than at any time since 1928.

With lawmakers eager to wrap up work for the year, the measure was on track for final passage by early next week. To give the Senate time to complete action, Obama signed a 48-hour law to keep the government funded through today and prevent a shutdown that both parties have pledged to avoid. A second stop-gap bill also was in the wings, to make sure the government had funding through Wednesday.

Nor was there much if any controversy over the spending levels in the spending measure, which provides funding to keep nearly the entire government operating through the Sept. 30 end of the current budget year.

The sole exception is the Department of Homeland Security, which is funded only until Feb. 27. Republicans intend to try then to force the president to roll back a new immigration policy that removes the threat of deportation from millions of immigrants living in the country illegally.

“That battle begins in just four weeks when we get the reinforcements of a Republican Senate in January,” Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House Republican whip, said late Thursday night after the legislation cleared the House.

An unrelated portion of the bill changes the rules for severely distressed multi-employer pension funds, opening the way to possible cuts in benefits for future retirees.

But much of the controversy surrounding the bill concerned a variety of provisions relating to financial regulation, the environment, campaign financing rules and more.

Pelosi and other Democrats objected most vociferously to a pair of them. One raises the amount of money that wealthy donors may contribute to political parties for national conventions, election recounts and headquarters buildings.

Generating far more unhappiness among Democrats was a section that eliminates a new regulation that was imposed on the nation’s banks in the wake of the 2008 near-meltdown of the economy.

The prospect of undoing that regulation inflamed liberals, including some mentioned as potential presidential candidates in 2016.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a critic of big banks whose supporters urge her to run for the White House, criticized the proposal for the third day in a row on the Senate floor.