Democrats give up on omnibus bill, likely avert a shutdown

In the end, Democrats blinked, and in doing so likely averted a government shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Thursday abandoned efforts to pass a $1.11 trillion omnibus spending bill, giving in to pressure from Senate Republicans who criticized the measure.

Reid said Thursday night on the floor that he plans to work with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to come up with a short-term continuing resolution that can pass the chamber.

A frustrated Reid said he had the 60 votes earlier in the day, including GOP support, but those Republicans could no longer support the bill after conferring with the their caucus.

"In reality we only have one choice and that's a short-term CR," Reid said. "So in the next 24 hours or so, Senator McConnell and I will work to try to come up with a CR to fund the government for a certain period of time."

It was a big win for Republicans, and especially for McConnell, who came out on top of another procedural fight with Reid. On Thursday, McConnell introduced a CR that would fund the government at current levels through February 18. That would give Republicans, who would control the House and have more Republicans in the Senate, a bigger influence on fiscal year 2011 decisions.

Congress has until midnight Saturday to pass a spending measure, when current temporary funding legislation is set to expire.

McConnell said that the reason support for the package evaporated was over process.

"The reason he doesn't have the votes is because members on this side increasingly felt concern about the way we do business," McConnell said.

The package included more than 6,500 earmarks worth more than $8 billion.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., hailed it as a victory. Earlier in the day he vowed to filibuster the omnibus.

But Democrats were quick to point out that Republicans had hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks in the package, including ones requested by McConnell and other Republican leaders like Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.

"It is not fair for the Republicans to act like all those pages came from the Democratic side of the aisle," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who is an opponent of earmarks.

She questioned their sincerity on the issue and rhetorically asked why none of the Republican senators with earmarks in the bill sought to have them taken out of the package.

McConnell secured 42 earmarks worth $86.1 million in the package, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. Thune secured 28 earmarks worth $38.5 million in the bill, while Cornyn secured 51 earmarks worth $93.5 million, the group estimated. Their requests came before Senate Republicans agreed last month not to request any earmarks for the next two years.