Congress sent President Barack Obama hard-fought legislation cutting a record $38 billion from central spending on Thursday, bestowing bipartisan hold up on the first major compromise stuck between the White House and lately empowered Republicans in Congress.
"Welcome to alienated government," said House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Republican point man in tough talks with the president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that shaped a bill no one claimed to like in its total.
Leader of a rambunctious new greater part, Boehner said the cuts in domestic program were first-time. Yet he also called the measure a less-than-perfect first step in a long campaign against federal red ink, and dozens of rank-and-file conservative voted in opposition to it.
