Republican Speaker needed Democratic votes to get bill through
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation to maintain government funding and avert a shutdown. But though the legislation was based on a deal worked out between President Obama and the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, Boehner was not able to round up enough members of his own party to pass the bill. Fifty-nine members of his caucus voted against the bill, and it passed only with the help of the 81 Democrats who voted for it. Boehner had come under heavy criticism from conservative publications like National Review, which claimed that the budget deal used accounting tricks to make it look like it had more drastic spending cuts than it actually did, and urged Republican Congressmen to vote against it. The bill is expected to pass the Senate, but the Republican defections may force Boehner to take an even harder line in future negotiations with Obama.