House is expected to vote on financial overhaul bill Friday

WASHINGTON - Roughly 15 months after the global financial system teetered on the brink of a implosion, the House began Thursday to debate the most sweeping rewrite of financial regulation since the Great Depression.

The House began considering 36 amendments, after House leaders whittled down the 200-plus offered for consideration. (That is more amendments than were offered on the health care legislation.) Voting on the 36 amendments is to conclude Friday, followed by an expected vote on the broad Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 as amended. The legislation would:

• Provide regulation for exotic financial instruments.

• Create a Financial Services Oversight Council to police the financial system.

• Create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to regulate consumer credit products such as mortgages, payday loans and credit cards.

• Create a legal way of breaking apart failing institutions that are so large that their collapse threatens the broader financial system.

Union leaders, among the most passionate backers of President Obama's health care overhaul, pressed Democratic senators Thursday to drop a tax on high-value insurance plans to pay for remaking the nation's system. The Senate is expected to resume debate on health care Monday.

At issue is a proposed 40 percent excise tax on insurance companies, keyed to premiums paid on plans costing more than $8,500 annually for individuals and $23,000 for families. The tax would raise some $150 billion over 10 years to help pay for the Democrats' nearly $1 trillion health care bill.

Democrats are muscling through a spending bill, giving domestic programs their third major boost this year and awarding lawmakers with more than 5,000 home-state projects.

The House voted 221-202 to pass the $1.1 trillion measure -- combining $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. The Senate immediately voted to begin debate, with a final vote likely this weekend. No House Republicans voted for the bill.

The measure provides spending increases averaging about 10 percent to programs under immediate control of Congress. It comes on top of an infusion of cash to domestic agencies in February's economic stimulus bill and a $410 billion measure in March.

Also Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., confirmed that the House will vote to raise the cap on government borrowing, currently set at $12.1 trillion. The hike in the debt ceiling is likely to exceed $1.5 trillion so that another politically excruciating vote to raise the limit won't be needed next year. The deficit for the 2009 budget year registered $1.4 trillion and a comparable deficit is expected for 2010 -- and that is before Congress spends up to $100 billion to renew extended jobless payments and health insurance subsidies for the unemployed and passes legislation intended to create jobs.