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WASHINGTON - Lawmakers and White House budget bargainers whittled their differences to a handful, fueling hopes Friday that Congress can speed an overdue $388 billion bill to President Bush (news - web sites) that finances most federal agencies.

The giant measure, which was in position for votes by late Friday, bears extra money for priorities like veterans and the wartorn Darfur region of Sudan, and likely thousands of projects for lawmakers' home districts.

But the legislation was largely defined by Bush's demands for curbs on domestic spending, with only modest increases for favorites like education and cuts for some of the president's own initiatives.

"Everybody took hits," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., a chief author of the measure. "There will be members who aren't totally satisfied, but we we're committed to stay within the budget number."

Young said the bill would have been $20 billion larger had he accommodated all of his colleagues requests for more projects.

Late problems included staunch White House opposition to an effort by some legislators to curb Bush's plan to contract out federal jobs to private businesses, as well as a plan to pay for some of the bill's increases by cutting unspent defense funds.

The same budget pressures that squeezed the spending bill forced Republicans to push another measure through Congress late Thursday that will raise the government's debt limit by $800 billion. That would bring to $2.23 trillion the total borrowing increases Bush has needed in his four years in the White House ? more than all the debt the country accumulated from its founding through 1986.

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Autonomous said:

... and another thing, forgiveness is irrelevant in assessing the goodness of a man or his fitness for a position.

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