WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate cleared and sent to President Barack Obama legislation Wednesday scaling back across-the-board cuts on programs ranging from the Pentagon to the national park system, resolving for now spending issues that helped spur a government shutdown in October.

Obama was expected to swiftly sign the measure, which lawmakers in both parties and at opposite ends of the Capitol said they hoped would curb budget brinkmanship and prevent another shutdown.

The legislation passed the Democratic-controlled Senate on a vote of 64-36 six days after clearing the Republican-run House by a heftier bipartisan margin of 332-94.

Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas voted in favor of the bill, while Republican Sen. John Boozman opposed it.

“I’m tired of the gridlock, and the American people that I talk to, especially from Arkansas, are tired of it as well,” said Pryor, who may have to defend his vote in next year’s campaign for a new term. His likely Republican rival, Rep. Tom Cotton, voted against the measure last week when it cleared the House.

The measure, negotiated by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., averts $63 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that were themselves the result of an earlier inability of lawmakers and the White House to agree on a sweeping deficit-reduction plan. That represents about one-third of the cuts originally ticketed for the 2014 and 2015 budget years and known in Washington as sequestration.

“It is not going to solve every problem, but it is a step in the right direction and a dramatic improvement over the status quo,” Murray said before the vote.

Democrats expressed satisfaction that money would be restored for programs like Head Start and education, and lawmakers in both parties and the White House cheered the cancellation of future cuts at the Pentagon.

To offset the added spending, the legislation provides about $85 billion in savings from elsewhere in the budget. Included are increases in the airline ticket tax that helps pay for security at airports and a fee corporations pay to have pensions guaranteed by the government.

To attract conservative votes, the more than $22 billion in savings will be applied to reduce deficits.

A big part of the savings is tied to extending cuts in Medicare provider payments into 2022 and 2023, rather than letting them expire in 2021 as under current law. The accord also spared doctors for three months from cuts in the Medicare reimbursement rates set to start in January.

The measure doesn’t extend emergency benefits for 1.3 million unemployed workers, an omission that frustrated Democrats, who said they plan to continue the fight for that in January.

Also contentious was a provision to curtail annual cost-of-living increases in benefits that go to military retirees under age 62, a savings of $6.3 billion over a decade for the government.

By one estimate, the result would be a reduction of nearly $72,000 in benefits over a lifetime for a sergeant first class who retires at age 42 after 20 years of service. Veterans groups and their allies in Congress objected to what they said was a singling out of former members of the military, and key lawmakers in both parties said they would take a second look at the provision next year.

But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said a veteran of identical rank who retired at 38 would still wind up with $1.62 million in retirement pay over a lifetime. He also pointed out that a prominent deficit commission headed by former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson had recommended abolishing cost-of-living increases for military retirement pay as part of a deficit-reduction plan.

McCain, who was a Vietnam prisoner of war, also asked rhetorically if there were an alternative to the pending legislation that also would “prevent us from shutting down the government again, something that I refuse to inflict on the citizens of my state.”

In response, Murray said there was no other legislation to accomplish that. She added that if the bill did not pass, the Pentagon “would take another $20 billion hit” from across-the-board cuts early next year, with some personnel furloughed as a result.

She made one concession, telling Georgia Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss that she would work to exclude disabled veterans from the change contained in the legislation.

The Republican pair joined Democrats in voting in favor of the bill, along with McCain and fellow Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Orrin Hatch of Utah, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rob Portman of Ohio.

The last time Congress reached a budget agreement with the two chambers run by separate parties was in 1986, when Democrats controlled the House and Republicans ran the Senate.

“This vote shows both parties - in both chambers - can find common ground,” Ryan said after the vote. “This bill is only a small step. We need to do a lot more. But it’s a small step in the right direction.”

Tea Party organizations lined up to oppose the legislation, arguing that it would raise spending. Deficits are projected to rise slightly for three years because of the bill.

“This budget may be a deal for Democrats and progressive Republicans, but it’s a rip-off for citizens,” Freedom-Works President Matt Kibbe said, adding that Congress is “spending now, for reductions promised later that will never materialize.”

Three potential GOP presidential contenders, Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, also opposed the bill. So, too, did the party’s top leaders, Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John Cornyn of Texas, and several members of the rank and file who face primary challenges from the right next year.

Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Roy Blunt of Missouri and Jeff Flake of Arizona, who voted to advance the bill earlier in the week, opposed its final passage Wednesday.

“I simply couldn’t support a budget agreement that trades spending increases today for potential spending cuts years down the road,” Flake said. “We’ve seen that movie before, and we know how it ends.”

Congress must now pass legislation by Jan. 15 that spells out the spending plans to avert another shutdown. Lawmakers have begun drafting an omnibus appropriations bill that will implement the budget accord.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Barbara Mikulski of Maryland told fellow Democrats during a private meeting Tuesday that she plans to have a catchall spending bill ready for lawmakers to consider when they return to Washington in January, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

“She’s going to work during the Christmas break, all the subcommittees will work, and when we come back, she believes we will have an omnibus,” Reid said.

The canceled across-the board reductions put spending on general government programs at $1.012 trillion for the budget year that began Oct. 1 and $1.014 trillion for the next.

Agency budgets totaled $986 billion in 2013 after automatic sequestration cuts were imposed, causing numerous furloughs and cutting grants to local school districts, health researchers and providers of Head Start preschool care to low-income children, among other effects. The next round of automatic cuts would have sent spending down to $967 billion.

The cuts themselves were triggered after lawmakers failed to agree two years ago on a far more sweeping series of deficit reductions.

While resolving some spending issues, the budget plan leaves the door open to a possible fight over raising the debt limit as U.S. borrowing authority is set to lapse in February.

Congress suspended the debt limit through Feb. 7 as part of a deal to end the shutdown in October. After that date, the government can use so-called extraordinary measures to prevent missed payments. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has said those steps can last for about a month.

Republican leaders are considering several proposals they want to include with a debt-limit increase, including energy and tax-code changes and a delay or repeal of the mandate that most individuals purchase insurance under Obama’s health-care law. Republicans are expected to set their plans after an annual policy retreat in late January.

“This is not something to be trifled with,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday about raising U.S. borrowing authority. “It is not something to be horse-traded over. It’s the full faith and credit of the United States.” Information for this article was contributed by David Espo and Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press; by Lisa Mascaro of the Tribune Washington Bureau; and by Kathleen Hunter, Heidi Przybyla, Derek Wallbank, Richard Rubin and James Rowley of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/19/2013