WASHINGTON (New York Times) — The congressional fight over a $1.1 trillion spending package moved to the Senate on Friday, where passage is expected, but not without possible delays prompted by Democrats who want to air complaints over contentious provisions and Republicans who say that the bill contains wasteful spending and does not sufficiently counter President Obama’s executive action on immigration.
As the Senate prepared to take up the spending bill on Friday, the majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said that it was “far from perfect,” but was much better than the likely alterative, a three-month extension of federal spending at current levels.
The bill, he said, “gives the Affordable Care Act the secure financial footing that it deserves” and provides money for military operations against the Islamic State and for public health efforts against the Ebola virus.
Mr. Reid said that he did not support provisions of the bill that roll back Dodd-Frank Act restrictions on big banks. But he said that “I did not write this bill, Senate Democrats did not write this bill alone; it’s a compromise,” and that “legislation is the art of compromise.”