WASHINGTON – Democrats controlling the Senate abandoned on Thursday a huge catchall spending measure combining nearly $1.3 trillion worth of unfinished budget work, including $158 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Facing a midnight Saturday deadline when a stopgap funding measure expires, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would work with Republican leader Mitch McConnell to produce a bill to keep the federal government running into early next year.
The 1,924-page bill collapsed of its own weight after an outcry from conservatives who complained it was stuffed with more than $8 billion in homestate pet projects known as earmarks.
Reid, D-Nev., gave up on the bill after several Republicans who had been thinking of voting for it pulled back their support. McConnell, R-Ky., threw his weight against the bill in recent days, saying it was “unbelievable” that Democrats would try to muscle through in the days before Christmas legislation that usually takes months to debate.
“Just a few weeks after the voters told us they don’t want us rushing major pieces of complicated, costly, far-reaching legislation through Congress, we get this,” McConnell said. “This is no way to legislate.”