by Calculated Risk on 3/06/2013 06:20:00 PM

Imagine going six months without a manufactured crisis?  Maybe it will happen. I expect the Senate will restore some of the sequestration cuts, but this sounds like a little progress.

From the NY Times: Moving First on Budget, House Passes Funding Bill

The House on Wednesday easily passed legislation to keep the government financed through September, raising pressure on the Senate to quickly follow suit before the current financing runs out on March 27.

The House bill gives military and veterans programs some breathing room under the automatic spending cuts that took effect on Friday by increasing financing for Pentagon priorities.

But domestic programs are left largely unprotected from cuts of up to 11 percent under the so-called sequestration.

Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland ... said she would demand the kind of changes the House afforded military programs for at least some of the domestic side of the spending bill. That way Congress can prioritize programs that lift economic growth now, like transportation and infrastructure, and strengthen future economic growth through science and technology, even within the strictures of across-the-board cuts.
...
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said Republican leaders in the House and Senate accepted that Senate Democrats would want to put their mark on the spending plan. He was still sanguine that a final measure would reach President Obama in time for Congress’s two-week spring recess, set to begin on March 23.