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House Republicans on Thursday continued their steady march toward approving the largest spending cuts in modern history – a swift, huge slash of more than $60 billion from domestic programs and foreign aid that Republicans said would fulfill their promise to shrink government outlays, but Democrats said would harm the fragile economic recovery.

The White House has already threatened to veto the bill, and Senate Democrats have voiced strong objections to the scale of cuts by the House Republicans, putting the parties on a collision course that officials warned could lead to a shutdown of the federal government early next month.

The stop-gap measure now financing the government expires on March 4, and the speaker of the House, John A. Boehner of Ohio, bluntly warned on Thursday that Republicans would not agree to even a temporary extension unless it reduced spending, which is now generally being held at 2010 levels.

“When we say we’re going to cut spending,” Mr. Boehner intoned at a news conference, “read my lips: ‘we’re going to cut spending.’”

While Mr. Boehner accused Democrats of threatening to shut the government down to avoid making cuts, Democrats accused Republicans of risking a shutdown by refusing to compromise. “It is unproductive to resort to threats of a shutdown without any negotiations,” the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said in a statement.

After working through Wednesday night and into the predawn hours on Thursday, lawmakers returned to the House floor and clashed fiercely over proposed amendments to the spending measure. A final vote was not expected until after midnight, but with the new Republican majority resolute in executing big cuts, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Republicans now control the House 241 to 193 with one vacancy.

Because the rules of debate required that any restorations in funding be offset with corresponding cuts elsewhere, the total reductions were certain to exceed the roughly $60 billion originally included in the spending measure by the House Appropriations Committee. The bill covers spending for the remainder of the current fiscal year, which runs through Sept. 30.

While the final tally remained to be counted, there was no doubt that House Republicans would succeed in approving their bill after the sort of raucous free-wheeling debate that has been a rarity in the House in recent years. Rank-and-file lawmakers put forward hundreds of amendments, and the outcome of some votes went against the wishes of Republican leaders.

Mr. Boehner said the debate underscored his commitment to letting the House work its will. But long before the vote, he was promoting the outcome. “As part of our effort to liberate our economy from the shackles of out-of-control spending,” he said, “the House will soon vote to cut discretionary spending by over $100 billion over the last seven months of this fiscal year.”

He added, “That’s five times larger than any discretionary spending cuts ever considered by the House. We’ve exceeded the commitment that we made in our Pledge to America, and there are more reforms and cuts to come.”

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Senator Lisa Murkowski is back, but that does not mean she is on message.

The Republican senator from Alaska, who recaptured her seat in November though a write-in campaign, told an Anchorage television reporter that while she would vote to repeal the health care overhaul in the unlikely event that such a bill hit the Senate floor, she is not sure that the Republicans in that body should be talking about it.

“We’re in a situation where there’s some messaging going on,” said Ms. Murkowski, during an interview with KTVA-TV, in an apparent reference to the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s announcement that the Senate would take up the repeal bill passed this week in the House, in spite of the fact that Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, had already said in a one-word news release that the chances of such a vote were “unlikely.”

Ms. Murkowski pointed out that there were probably not enough votes in the Senate — where Democrats have lost strength but remain in the majority — to pass a repeal of the law, and said that President Obama would never get on board with it, either.

“I think we’ve got to get rid of it,” she said in reference to the health care overhaul, but added, “What I don’t think people want is the kind of messaging that’s going on,” by referring to a vote that would likely not come to fruition.

Further, she said: “If we end it and do nothing else, we haven’t helped out a single American family out there. If we get rid of it and say, ‘O.K., you’re all on your own,’ we’re worse off than when we started these discussions.”

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Drew Angerer/The New York Times Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, center, announced shortly after the vote their intention to introduce a new bill to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, joined them at the podium.

4:31 p.m. | Updated A Republican senator and an independent senator said today that they will jointly introduce a stand-alone bill to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy after a larger defense bill containing the repeal failed to advance in the Senate.

Senate Republicans blocked the attempt to move ahead with the bill that would have repealed the ban on gay troops serving openly in the military. The vote was 57-40, almost entirely along party lines, and three short of the 60 needed.

The vote was a setback to President Obama and the Democratic leadership, who have made repealing the Clinton-era policy a key priority. And it short-circuited the efforts of a handful of Republicans who said they supported a repeal but wanted more time to negotiate the process of debating and voting on the measure.

The lawmaker leading that effort, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, voted in favor of the motion but was not joined by any of her colleagues. Ms. Collins and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent, announced shortly after the vote their intention to introduce a new bill.

“I am convinced that there are 60 or even 61 or 62 votes to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’,” Ms. Collins told reporters. “I’m extremely disappointed that the Senate majority leader walked away from negotiations in which we were engaged and which were going well.”

A spokesman for Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said Mr. Reid will co-sponsor the stand-alone legislation. “We do intend to take a free-standing bill to the floor,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid.

But a bill focused solely on repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy faces steep challenges, including the likelihood that supporters of the policy in the Senate could seek to offer numerous amendments during a debate over the legislation.

In a statement, President Obama said he was disappointed that “yet another filibuster” by Republicans had blocked the defense bill and the provisions to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“A minority of Senators were willing to block this important legislation largely because they oppose the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” Mr. Obama said. “While today’s vote was disappointing, it must not be the end of our efforts. I urge the Senate to revisit these important issues during the lame duck session.”

Mr. Reid had called for the procedural vote on the overall defense bill despite having failed to reach agreement with the Republicans on how to proceed. In a statement after the vote, Ms. Collins said those negotiations were “going well” and she accused Mr. Reid of walking away from the discussions.

Republicans had earlier indicated that without an agreement about the number of amendments and the timing of the debate, they would vote against moving forward to vote on the legislation.

Advocates of repealing the policy criticized the vote, saying the effort to allow gays to serve openly in the military had fallen victim to political squabbles in the Congress. One newly elected Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, also voted against the measure.

“Today leaders of both parties let down the U.S. military and the American people,” said Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign. “Instead of doing what is right, ‘the world’s greatest deliberative body’ devolved into shameful schoolyard spats that put petty partisan politics above the needs of our women and men in uniform.”

Mr. Solmonese vowed that “this fight is too important to give up despite this setback and we will continue fighting in this lame duck session. It’s not over.”

A veterans group also expressed anger at the vote, which delays approval of the massive military spending bill to which the repeal was attached. The Congress has not failed to pass a military spending bill for decades.

“By voting to filibuster the Defense Authorization Act, today, a minority of Senators have betrayed our troops,” said Ashwin Madia, interim chairman of VoteVets.org. “Leaving aside ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ this bill is crucial to our military readiness, and funding our troops in harm’s way.”

Prior to the vote, Mr. Reid conceded that that the failure to reach an agreement could doom the effort to repeal the policy, which has been a key priority for President Obama and gay activists.

“Despite the critical importance for our troops, for our nation, and for justice that we get this bill done, we have not been able to reach an agreement,” Mr. Reid said this afternoon. “And I regret to say that it is our troops who will pay the price for our inability to overcome partisan political posturing.”

Mr. Reid’s decision to move forward in an attempt to force a vote caught senators off guard, including Ms. Collins, who had been negotiating with Mr. Reid about the terms of the debate.

In an impassioned, impromptu speech, Ms. Collins complained that she wanted to vote in favor of the overall bill, including the repeal provision, but could not do so without an agreement on the process first.

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From Today’s Times:

– President Obama will possibly try to make major changes to the income tax code, The Times’s Jackie Calmes reports. The plan would be to get rid of many loopholes, thus allowing for more revenue and lower rates.

– Rank-and-file Democrats remain upset about the proposed tax cut compromise, The Times’s David Herszenhorn and Carl Hulse report. In the House, Democrats have threatened to not bring the measure to the floor, while party members could try to filibuster in the Senate.

– The chances of repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” this year took a severe hit in the Senate on Thursday, The Times’s Jennifer Steinhauer reports. With a military policy bill containing the repeal stalled, repeal supporters said they would try to forge ahead with a stand-alone bill.

– The implementation of new rules on smog and toxic emissions is being delayed, The Times’s John Broder and Sheryl Gay Stolberg report, as the Obama administration adjusts to life with a more robust Republican opposition.

– The fate of the so-called New Start treaty may be up in the air, but The Times’s Peter Baker reports that a civilian nuclear agreement between the United States and Russia has now finished winding its way through Congress.

From Around the Web:

– Is Rick Santorum, the former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, seriously looking at a presidential run in 2012? He’s been to New Hampshire seven times since April, The Washington Post reports. (Not to mention Iowa seven times over the last 14 months.)

– Senator Tom Coburn — the Oklahoma Republican dubbed “Dr. No” — is becoming a central figure in the battle against the country’s rising debt, The Wall Street Journal finds.

– A group of 20 senators wants the tax cut bill to include a non-binding call for a deficit reduction plan to be approved by the end of 2011, National Journal reports.

– Freshmen Republicans are getting assigned to plum committees in the House, according to Politico.

Washington Daybook:

– 42 and 44 connect: Mr. Obama is scheduled to meet with former President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office on Friday.

– A rally for Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese dissident and winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, is expected to be held in Capitol Hill on Friday — the day the peace prize ceremony is to be held in Norway.

– On Friday night, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, are slated to give keynote addresses at a Brookings Institution forum on the Middle East.

– Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, is set to talk about Russia at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies

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Senate Republicans have made a name for themselves by finding ways to block Democratic legislation. Even when Democrats controlled a big enough majority to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome filibusters, the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell often found creative ways to slow down the legislative process, delaying the inevitable as long as possible.

But with a little bit of luck, Mr. McConnell this week may yet pull off his greatest blocking effort yet – by stopping a major food safety bill that has already been approved.

The Senate adopted the food safety measure on Tuesday by a vote of 73 to 25 with 15 Republicans joining in support. (The bill would strengthen the Food and Drug Administration, and is intended to help prevent unsafe foods from reaching grocery stores and restaurants.)

But because of an arcane parliamentary mistake, the bill must be sent to the House of Representatives, which must approve it and return it to the Senate to be approved one more time. Only then, can the measure be sent to President Obama.

And here’s where Mr. McConnell comes in. On Wednesday, Mr. McConnell and the 41 other Senate Republicans sent a letter to the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, warning him that they would not agree to move forward on any legislation until the Senate deals with the issue of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts.

Under normal circumstances, the Senate might simply re-approve the bill by unanimous agreement, bypassing the need even for a formal roll call vote.

But Republicans are not willing to go along, and that means that Mr. Reid would have to spend the better part of a week cycling through procedural votes just to get the food safety bill back on the floor.

The arcane problem in the food safety bill stems from a provision that gives the secretary of health and human services the authority to collect fees from food facilities and importers for inspection, recall, re-inspection and importation activities.

Part of the fee also covers the administration of the “Voluntary Qualified Importer Program” which helps expedite access to imports that pose no meaningful food safety risk. And because the fee pays for administration, not directly for a service provided by the government, it is a revenue provisions that, according the Constitution, must first be approved by the House.

A spokesman for Mr. McConnell said that Mr. Reid would likely have no trouble getting the measure approved again once the tax cut debate is settled and Congress has approved a spending measure to keep the government functioning. Until then, however, Republicans will block the bill along with everything else Mr. Reid is hoping to accomplish.

Even after the tax fight is done, the food safety bill remains a headache for Mr. Reid. If Republicans force him to burn time jumping through all of the procedural hoops – and they intend to do so – Mr. Reid will likely have to sacrifice other legislative priorities that he would have tried to take up during the same time.

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The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said on Wednesday that he would try to bring up a bill that would create a path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as small children.

Mr. Reid tried to attach the legislation as an amendment to a big military policy bill before the midterm elections, but Republicans blocked the bill in part because they said the Democratic leader was using it as a political prop.

During his re-election campaign in Nevada, Mr. Reid said he would try again to pass the legislation, known as the Dream Act. And in a Twitter message on Wednesday evening, his office said he would try to do so in the current session as a stand-alone bill.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, has been discussing the immigration measure with Democratic colleagues but has not yet scheduled a vote on it, a spokesman said.

The legislation would give legal residency to immigrants who arrived in the United States before age 16 and resided here for at least five years, graduated from high school and completed two years of college or military service. They would be subject to background checks, could not have a criminal record, and even if successful would still not be eligible for benefits like Pell grant scholarships.

In a statement, Mr. Reid said: “If there is a bipartisan bill that makes sense for our country economically, from a national security perspective and one that reflects American values, it is the Dream Act. This bill will give children brought illegally to this country at no fault of their own the chance to earn legal status. Children brought to this country before the age of 16 who graduate high school, stay out of trouble and go on to serve in the military or to college would be eligible to earn permanent resident status after meeting certain other requirements.”

Mr. Reid noted that the legislation has enjoyed bipartisan support in the past and that he hoped it would again, now that the campaign season has ended.

“Secretaries of defense from both parties have supported this bill because it strengthens our Armed Forces,” Mr. Reid said in his statement. In fact, this bill has a long history of bipartisan support, and was originally co-authored by Republicans. The students who earn legal status through the Dream Act will make our country more competitive economically, spurring job creation, contributing to our tax base and strengthening communities.”

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