Huge budget bill aims to show Congress' mettle

A chastened Congress is putting aside the crisis-driven budget battles of the past three years, embracing a $1.1 trillion spending bill that restores or smooths the sharpest edges of the automatic cuts imposed as a result of its own dysfunction.

The huge election-year legislation preserves the downward trajectory on government spending demanded by Republicans. Yet the bipartisan measure steaming through Congress also preserves President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and stricter regulation of financial markets — and deflects the most significant attempts by Republicans to rewrite environmental rules and force other changes.