The US Senate set the stage for approval on Wednesday of a compromise budget deal that will avert another costly Government shutdown and minimize damage from across-the-board spending cuts.
The upper chamber of Congress voted 67-33 on Tuesday to end debate on the measure and was expected to approve it in a final vote on Wednesday.
“Gridlock has got to end, and it is ending. And the American people are satisfied that we’re moving forward,” Senator Harry Reid, leader of the majority Democrats, said after the vote. “For the first time probably since 1986, we had a bipartisan budget agreement. That’s progress.” The lower House of Representatives approved the bipartisan deal Thursday in a remarkable departure from the budget stand-offs of the last several years.
Seen as imperfect by both Democrats and Republicans, the measure would fund the Government for the next two years in a bid to avoid the partisan gridlock that prompted a 16-day Government shutdown in October.
President Barack Obama has indicated he would sign the compromise measure, which was forged by negotiators from the House and Senate.
The proposal sets discretionary spending at just over 1 trillion dollars for each of the 2014 and 2015 budget years.
In 2014, discretionary spending would be $520.5 billion for defence and $491.8 billion for non-defence spending. Much of Government spending is consumed by other non-discretionary spending, such as healthcare programmes for the poor and elderly and payouts to pensioners, which are not included in the budget.
The deal would ease the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester by $63 billion, while making $85 billion in cuts elsewhere and reducing the deficit by $23 billion.