Budgets Approved, With No G.O.P. Votes

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WASHINGTON — The House and Senate approved budgets of about $3.5 trillion for the government on Thursday with no Republican support, a sign of deep partisan tensions likely to color Congressional efforts to enact major policy initiatives sought by President Obama.

On the heels of House approval of its spending plan for 2010, the Senate voted 55 to 43 shortly before midnight to adopt a similar budget after a day spent laboring over politically tinged amendments that did little to change a fiscal blueprint generally in keeping with Mr. Obama’s ambitious agenda.

Democrats said the two budgets, which will have to be reconciled after a two-week Congressional recess, cleared the way for health care, energy and education overhauls pushed by the new president. The Democrats said the budgets reversed what they portrayed as the failed economic approach of the Bush administration and Republican-led Congresses.

“This responsible budget will start cleaning up the mistakes of the past and make critical investments in our future,” Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the majority leader, said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Democrats would like to find consensus with Republicans, but not at the expense of the infusion of federal money that the majority calls crucial in a time of economic distress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/us/politics/03budget.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print