Senate Passes $182B Spending Bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has approved must-do legislation to fund the day-to-day budgets of five Cabinet agencies, kick-starting long overdue work to add the details to budget limits agreed to by President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans this summer.

The 69-30 vote came on a $182 billion bundle of bills to fund programs including transportation, space exploration, housing subsidies and the FBI for the 2012 budget year.

Under the budget pact enacted in August, lawmakers have to cut about $7 billion — less than 1 percent — from the more than $1 trillion budgeted last year for daily agency operations. Such cuts, while small, would be come in addition to perhaps $1.2 trillion in savings from benefit programs like farm subsidies and Medicare. Those reductions are expected from a deficit "supercommittee."