WASHINGTON – The House has passed a $1 trillion-plus catchall budget bill paying for day-to-day operations of 10 Cabinet departments and averting a government shutdown, while Senate talks on renewing a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits reached a critical phase.

The 296-121 vote to approve the spending measure represented a rare moment of bipartisanship in a polarized Capitol. The Senate's top Republican, meanwhile, raised the stakes in the showdown over the payroll tax cut, insisting he won't back a compromise extension unless the bill includes language aimed at forcing construction of a Canada-to-Texas pipeline.

Seeking to outflank Democrats, House Republicans announced early Thursday morning they had introduced a new 1,219-page spending bill to keep the government open past Friday, when current funding is scheduled to run out.

At a total of $915 billion in discretionary spending, the bill amounts to $750.6 million per page and funds the vast majority of government operations, from defense to homeland security to federal parks.

The bill is a direct challenge to Democrats and the White House, which late Wednesday called on Congress to pass a short-term stopgap spending bill to buy more time to negotiate a payroll tax cut deal.

In a statement, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said President Obama has “significant concerns” about the broad spending bill, which he said would cut away at Mr.

Congress once again is flirting with a partial government shutdown for the third time this year, and Republicans accused Democrats of blocking the critical year-end funding bill in order to use it as leverage in the payroll-tax-cut negotiations.

The current stopgap funding runs out Friday, and while those writing the replacement bill say it’s ready to go, Democratic leaders insisted it’s not done, though they acknowledged it could be wrapped up speedily if all sides wanted to.

“I think we could complete it very quickly if people sat down and focused on what we need to do to get out of here,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.

Mr. Reid said he will not allow a final full-year spending bill to pass until he and House Republicans work out an extension of the payroll tax cut into 2012.

House Republicans passed their tax cut bill Tuesday, but Senate Republicans objected to voting on that bill Wednesday morning, upping the brinkmanship...

Washington (CNN) -- The Democratic-controlled Senate rejected a House GOP temporary spending bill in a procedural test vote Friday, inching the federal government closer to yet another potential shutdown and risking the loss of sorely needed disaster recovery funds.

Before the measure was even formally presented, senators cast it aside in a 59-36 vote.

Hours earlier, GOP leaders rammed the bill through the Republican-controlled House in a 219-203 vote after adding a series of cuts vehemently opposed by their Democratic counterparts.

Both chambers of Congress must agree on new spending legislation to avoid a partial shutdown after the close of the current fiscal year on September 30.

Fox has learned that House Republican leaders could try to move a new bill to fund the government, avert a shutdown and infuse FEMA with disaster money as early as Thursday night.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) tells Fox News, "We're going to vote tonight...We intend to make sure there isn't a government shutdown."

House efforts to pass a similar spending bill, or continuing resolution, came up short late Wednesday afternoon when more than 45 Republicans bucked their leadership and voted no on the measure, en route to 230-195 final vote.

Congressman Lee Terry (R-NE) said, "Overall we have a lot of people who want to vote yes" and Cantor added, "We're trying to change the way business is done in Washington"...

People flocked to theatres in the 1940s to catch serials like the Perils of Pauline, Blazing the Overland Trail, Brenda Starr and Captain Marvel. The drama was unmatched as moviegoers always found their hero facing certain death each week in classical, cliffhanger fashion.

And then the hero would escape and return for another cliffhanger the next week.

These days, those cliffhanger serials seem to run on C-SPAN, with the 112th Congress narrowly averting disaster at every turn.

In March and April, the federal government came within a whisker of closing because Congress and President Obama waged an epic fight over spending priorities. The country nearly defaulted on its debt last month. And now in late September, lawmakers are like Indiana Jones, dashing out of the cave with a gigantic boulder bearing down on them.

The government starts a new fiscal year in a week-and-a-half. And there is again the chance for a government shutdown...

Following the budget deal that forced Senate Democrats to hold a vote soon on revoking the taxpayer funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business receives, leading pro-life Rep. Mike Pence and its president Cecile Richards are sparring.

Democrats caved on the issue of abortion late Friday night despite facing enormous pressure from pro-abortion groups to hold the line on taxpayer funding of abortion and Planned Parenthood funding.

Republicans and Democrats agreed to a budget deal with less than two hours to spare before the federal government engaged in a partial shutdown. The deal restores language that prohibits federal taxpayer funding of abortions in the nation’s capital that President Barack Obama and Democrats removed in a previous budget. The deal also requires something Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said he would never allow — a vote in the Senate on revoking funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business...

With a government shutdown half a day away, the Senate’s top Democrat said Friday the two sides are still too far apart to strike a deal and said he will try a longshot effort to pass a short-term spending bill later today.

House Republicans have already passed a one-week reprieve but President Obama and Senate Democrats have rejected that. Without a short-term bill, the government will run out of money and many operations will cease at midnight Friday.

“We’re very hopeful we can reach agreement,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said on the Senate floor...

President Obama, saying the government was already "starting to move" on a federal shutdown, came out of another high-stakes evening meeting Thursday with congressional leaders without a budget deal that could keep the government running.

"I'm not prepared yet to express wild optimism, but I think we are further along today than we were yesterday," Obama said in the White House briefing room after the meeting with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Yet with a shutdown possible as early as midnight at the end of Friday, Obama said he is pressing Democrats and Republicans to reach an agreement by Friday morning...

The White House has vowed to veto the short-term spending bill House Republicans voted on this afternoon that would provide a budgetary “safety net” while the parties work on a long-term deal.

Hours later the House passed the safety net bill anyway on a mostly party-line 247-181 vote.

Without a short-term extension, lawmakers face two options: either reach a deal on a broad bill to fund the government for the rest of this year, or else have the government shut down as of midnight Friday...