The Senate voted early Friday morning to break Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster of a large fiscal agreement that would raise the debt ceiling and lower the risk of a government shutdown in December.
The motion needed 60 votes to succeed. It passed narrowly, 63 to 35.
A vote on final passage is likely sometime later Friday morning as senators convene a rare overnight session to close out business on the hard-fought agreement. The Senate is expected to pass the budget.
The budget would increase federal spending on defense and domestic programs over $80 billion for the next two years and suspend the nation’s debt limit through March 2017.
Paul forced the overnight session when he filibustered the bill.
“The right’s going to get more military money, the left’s going to get more welfare money. The secret handshake goes on, and the American public gets stuck with the bill,” he said in a speech on the floor Thursday afternoon. “This deal will do nothing but explode the debt.”
Sen. Pat Toomey, a conservative Republican facing a tough re-election campaign in Pennsylvania, said the bill “fails to address our overspending problem.” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who helped force the last government shutdown in 2013, said the deal gives President Barack Obama a “diamond-encrusted, glow-in-the-dark AmEx card.”
“And it has a special feature,” Cruz continued. “The President gets to spend it now, and they don’t even send him the bill. They send the bill to your kids and my kids. It’s a pretty nifty card. You don’t have to pay for it. You get to spend it and it’s somebody else’s problem.”
Other Republicans — including those who work regularly across the aisle — complained too.
“The agreement reached by the White House and congressional leaders is yet another example of what the American people hate about Washington,” said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who criticized the deal for relying on budget “gimmicks.”
The concerns by Senate Republicans are consistent with those of House Republicans, most of whom voted against the deal when it passed the House on Wednesday.
Democrats, however, have insisted the agreement is worthwhile.
“The budget agreement is good for the middle class, good for the economy, and good for the country,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who worked quietly with bipartisan leaders in the House and Senate to cut the deal.
The vote came hours after former House Speaker John Boehner retired and turned over the top House position to Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin.
Passage of the budget would allow Ryan to begin his new job with a slate cleaned of some of the most controversial issues before the Congress.