The House has passed the budget deal for 2011, sending it on to the Senate for a vote later this afternoon. The final vote was 260-167, with 59 Republicans voting in opposition.
House Speaker John Boehner defended the budget deal, which has come under considerable criticism from conservatives for its anemic CBO scoring and some dubious spending “cuts,” right up until the vote was cast. As reported by Fox News, he “took to the floor to defend the bill,” and pulled out charts that showed “spending in 2011 finally going down, as compared with previous years.”
Boehner also pointed out that the rules of budgeting and appropriation would have made it difficult to enact serious spending cuts in the current fiscal year, which is more than half over. He said the bill “starts us moving in the right direction.”
Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, continued to complain the cuts made by the bill are too steep. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi voted against it.
Update: The House has also passed a bill to defund ObamaCare, 240-185. This bill also moves on to the Senate.
Update: The House also voted 241-185 to pass a resolution defunding Planned Parenthood.
Update: As expected, the bill to defund ObamaCare failed in the Senate on a party line vote, 53-47.
Update: the bill to defund Planned Parenthood failed in the Senate, 42-58.
