By Kristina Peterson 

WASHINGTON -- A $1.3 trillion spending bill sped through the House on Thursday, less than 24 hours after the measure was released, landing in the less-predictable Senate with dwindling time before the government runs out of money.

In a whirlwind period after the 2,232-page bill's release, the House passed the spending bill in a bipartisan 256-167 vote and left Washington for a two-week recess. The bill, which would fund the government until October, arrived Thursday afternoon in the Senate, where all 100 senators will have to cooperate to avoid a partial government shutdown when its current funding expires at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

Once the Senate passes the bill, President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law, White House officials said Thursday.

But the timing of that was uncertain. In the Senate, attention was focused on Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) who triggered a brief government shutdown last month when he objected to a budget deal that set the overall levels for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and the next one.

Mr. Paul signaled that he wasn't pleased with the amount of time he had to review the bill, tweeting out a picture of himself holding the legislation after his office printer took more than two hours to produce it. "Well here it is, all 2,232 budget-busting pages," Mr. Paul tweeted. "Congress is broken."

Mr. Paul declined to say whether he would block the Senate from speeding up its time-consuming procedures. On Thursday afternoon, he tweeted his criticisms of the bill as he read through its pages.

Other senators said Mr. Paul could delay but not block the bill's passage.

"I know how the movie ends," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) "No matter what he does, we're going to pass this bill and the military's going to get a pay raise and more funding and that's a good thing."

The bill unveiled Wednesday evening is the first installation of the two-year agreement reached last month between congressional leaders and Mr. Trump to lift federal spending above curbs set in 2011. The legislation would lift military spending by $80 billion this year and domestic programs by $63 billion, a decision lauded by defense hawks and criticized by lawmakers frustrated by its impact on the deficit.

"I'm really troubled by the increased spending in this bill," said Sen. David Perdue (R., Ga.) who was undecided on the bill Thursday as he weighed its advantages for the military against its impact on the debt.

Democrats celebrated victories in the spending bill, including higher spending for infrastructure, opioid research and treatment, the National Institutes of Health, Head Start and child-care programs.

"This is a bill that puts the middle class and those struggling to get there first," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.)

But some lawmakers from both parties balked at its funding for border security, which conservatives said was an insufficient start to Mr. Trump's long-promised wall along the border with Mexico. Democrats, meanwhile, said the border security funds were an affront in a bill that did nothing to end the uncertainty for young immigrants shielded from deportation by an Obama-era program that Mr. Trump ended in September.

"These young immigrants are not an issue to be leveraged in election after election," said Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, a centrist Republican who voted against the spending bill Thursday. "Congress' inaction is unacceptable."

The bill includes $1.57 billion for construction of physical barriers on the border with Mexico and other security measures. Mr. Trump won funding for 33 miles of new fencing on the Texas border -- about half of what he requested. He also got funding for 60 miles of replacement or secondary fencing. That represented more than Mr. Trump asked for, but is also far less controversial.

"Got $1.6 Billion to start Wall on Southern Border, rest will be forthcoming," Mr. Trump said in a tweet late Wednesday. "Had to waste money on Dem giveaways in order to take care of military pay increase and new equipment."

Democrats won a number of concessions, particularly regarding immigration enforcement inside the U.S. The bill provides for minimal or no increases to enforcement officers and detention bed space and no punishments for sanctuary cities. In addition, the new border construction must use designs already deployed, which rules out a solid concrete wall.

Conservatives had said the bill spent too little money on the border wall and too much on other policy items.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who met with Mr. Trump yesterday to discuss the bill, defended the bill's border security funding.

"This actually has more wall funding, and more wall allotment than the administration's request had," Mr. Ryan said. "We're going to be getting a down payment and starting on the border security."

The bill passed the House with the support of 145 Republicans and 111 Democrats. It was opposed by 90 Republicans and 77 Democrats.

The spending bill would take modest steps to rein in gun violence, after years of political fights over how to respond to recent mass shootings. The legislation includes a measure from Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) to strengthen compliance with the national background check system for buying firearms. The bill would also end what gun-control advocates say has effectively been a ban on federal gun-violence research.

--Natalie Andrews contributed to this article.

Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 22, 2018 18:23 ET (22:23 GMT)