WASHINGTON (AP)- The Senate has passed a spending bill to prevent keep the government running after a midnight deadline -- and to raise Congress' own budget by 6 percent.
The 62-38 vote sends the short-term funding bill to President Barack Obama, who's virtually certain to sign it by day's end.
But the measure passed over strong protests from a handful of Republicans such as Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who blasted his colleagues for attaching the stopgap bill to a measure increasing their office budgets.
The legislation also would patch over problems in the struggling postal service and pay for soon-to-expire highway programs for an additional month. The stopgap measure is needed because Congress has failed to complete work on the 11 remaining spending bills for agency budgets.
From the Associated PressIn your voice
