In spite of the brinkmanship, the parties endorsed a budget for 2011 without falling off the edge.
The Finance Ministry has endorsed the budget, but the commission in the House of Representatives required to approve the funds has blocked the disbursement.
Although bond rating agencies, editorials and the state-imposed fiscal monitors have all praised his actions, Mr. Suozzi said, the Republicans "are the only people who haven't endorsed this budget".
Mr. Obama, in his address, also endorsed a budget mechanism to automatically reduce the growth of Medicare spending if health care overhaul does not produce the savings that the administration and many health care experts expect.
If reconciliation is endorsed, the budget resolution will direct relevant committees to prepare health care legislation that can be merged into a single bill and then passed by a simple majority of those voting.
A senior official at the Department of the Army said it endorsed the budget amendment, and even senior uniformed officers who had previously defended the Crusader said efforts to save it would now have to come from supporters in Congress.
That report is generally credited with convincing Congress to pass the America COMPETES Act, a 2007 law that endorsed a budget doubling for agencies funding basic research in the physical sciences.
The original COMPETES Act, passed in 2007, endorsed major budget increases for NSF, NIST, and research programs at the Department of Energy as well as bolstered federal efforts to improve STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education.
For example, "you mention the America COMPETES Act," Smith wrote us, referring to the legislation passed by a Democratic Congress in 2007 that endorsed major budget increases at three key federal research agencies.
BOSTON Representatives of the two remaining major Democratic candidates for U.S. president both endorsed big budget increases for federally funded basic scientific research at a debate before hundreds of scientists today, with Senator Hillary Clinton's (D NY) team offering decidedly more specifics on their plans.
