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Senate Passes Spending Bill Amid Debate on Raising Debt Limit

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Sunday approved a $446.8 billion spending package that will keep much of the federal government running through next September.

But even as they sent the spending measure to President Obama, Democrats were deeply divided over efforts to substantially raise the federal debt limit before Congress quits for the year.

With the increased spending and more red ink provoking new Congressional alarm, a group of Democratic deficit hawks was insisting that Congress and the White House agree to new efforts to rein in the deficit or they would block a large increase in the debt limit.

Failure to increase the $12.1 trillion debt limit to cover federal borrowing could lead to a technical government default. As a result, the White House is eager to get some breathing room on the debt by the end of the year, giving lawmakers worried about deficit spending added power.

“There are a number of us who feel very strongly that this is the moment we can get some kind of concession,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri and one of a group of lawmakers who met in the Capitol over the weekend to plot strategy.

She and others said they wanted a vote on a new proposal to create a bipartisan, independent commission to recommend spending cuts and revenue increases to pare the deficit. Others want an agreement by Congress to follow “pay as you go” rules when considering legislation.

If they are unable to strike a deal with the White House and the Congressional leadership, the lawmakers said they would support only a short-term increase in the debt limit — perhaps into February — to allow more time for negotiation and for Mr. Obama to present his own deficit-reduction strategy in his State of the Union address.

“We are not going to give up the leverage we have now,” said Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat who leads the Budget Committee and is an author of the plan to create an independent deficit commission.

The spending measure passed Sunday on a vote of 57 to 35. The push by Democrats comes as Republicans, who presided over deficit spending when they controlled Congress and the White House, have tried to paint Democrats as profligate because of the $787 billion stimulus plan and other spending increases.

Trying to rebuild after two poor election showings, Republicans have focused on fiscal restraint as a way to try to recapture core conservative voters, despite their own recent record.

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Senator Kent Conrad speaking at a news conference last week on fiscal issues. He supports creating a deficit-cutting panel.Credit...Harry Hamburg/Associated Press

Republicans pointed to a 10 percent to 12 percent overall spending increase included in the measure as representative of a Democratic willingness to overspend.

“Poll after poll have made it clear that this kind of irresponsible and excessive spending is unacceptable, but Democrats simply aren’t getting the message,” Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement after the vote.

Top Democrats say their focus this year has had to be on job creation, but Mr. Obama and his aides say they intend to focus on deficit reduction next year and will propose a restrained budget in 2010.

Appearing Sunday on “State of the Union” on CNN, Lawrence H. Summers, the president’s chief economic adviser, said Mr. Obama was receptive to new ideas for reducing the deficit. But Mr. Summers would not commit to White House backing for a commission with the ability to make recommendations to Congress for an up-or-down vote.

“What’s fundamentally important is that we find a solution that works,” Mr. Summers said. “And the president will be open, is open, to any approach that offers the prospect of controlling the budget deficit.”

Top Democrats in the House and Senate, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are strongly opposed to the idea of an independent commission, arguing that the concept relinquishes too much Congressional authority.

Given that resistance, one compromise being discussed is a deficit reduction commission that would be created by executive order. It would still make recommendations to the House and Senate, but they would be subject to revision by Congress.

Congressional leaders acknowledge that the deficit hawks may have enough backers to win some concessions or force only a short-term increase in the debt limit. The leadership had been hoping to raise it by as much as $1.8 trillion to avoid a second vote before the 2010 elections.

The dispute is being negotiated at high levels as both Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, met with lawmakers uneasy about the debt in recent days. Mr. Conrad has also met with his own leadership.

Political brinksmanship has been a staple of past debt limit fights as lawmakers use their enhanced leverage to push against the deficit and soften the sting of voting to raise the nation’s borrowing power. In the mid-1980s, a group of deficit hawks seized on the need to increase the debt limit as an opportunity to push through the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget-cutting law.

Democrats plan to add whatever debt limit agreement they can reach to a $626 billion Pentagon spending measure they intend to consider this week. After Sunday’s passage of the spending package, the Pentagon money bill is the final one remaining, and the leadership intends to use it to carry last-minute legislation, some of which is highly contentious.

Among other outstanding issues are an extension of unemployment and health benefits for out-of-work Americans, a potential House jobs bill, the renewal of a handful of expiring federal programs and possible action to prevent the federal estate tax from expiring. The House hopes to adjourn this week; the Senate, in the middle of its health care fight, is likely to be in session longer.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Senate Passes Spending Bill Amid Debate on Raising Debt Limit. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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