Congress closes in on spending deal

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Congressional negotiators said Thursday they have agreed on a $1 trillion federal spending plan for 2012, apparently heading off a government shutdown.

After members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees approved the spending plan, lawmakers and their aides said Republicans and Democrats could be close to agreement on extending the payroll tax holiday for 160 million workers, The Washington Post reported.

"In spite of many unnecessary obstacles, it is good to see that responsible leadership and good governance can triumph," House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said of the spending plan – which will fund most government operations for the rest of fiscal 2012.

House leaders of both parties offered radically different versions Thursday of efforts to pass year-end spending bills as they struggled to avoid a shutdown, with the federal government set to run out of money Friday without additional appropriations.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the Republican spending bill passed in the House doesn't satisfy everyone.

"Does the bill have everything that Republicans want in it, certainly not," Boehner said. "Democrats didn't get everything they wanted either. But that's how divided government works."

Boehner told reporters in Washington "just about everything in the House-passed bill has bipartisan support. ... Our [Republican] bill is fully paid for, a bipartisan idea. And even the offsets, you know, 90 percent of the offsets are based on ideas from the president."

The speaker also argued there is bipartisan support for the Keystone Pipeline project, bringing oil from Canada through Nebraska, despite objections from environmentalists and a threat by President Obama to veto any bill that supports the pipeline.

"The provision speeding up Keystone Pipeline project will help create thousands of new jobs in our struggling economy," he said.

"So, there's no need to shut down the government" with gridlock, Boehner said.

The former House speaker, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had a different take.

"Republicans reluctantly passed through the House a bill that was doomed from the start," Pelosi told reporters. "It had the seeds of its own destruction there. The best analogy I can use is it's like ... someone saying to her fiance, yes I'll finally marry you, but I can only do that on Feb. 30.

"That day is never coming."

Pelosi said: "Under the Republican bill, 1 million Americans will lose their unemployment insurance Jan. 2, 2 million by February. And the difference between the president's bill and the Republican bill is the 3 million people losing their unemployment insurance."