Democrats in Congress capped President Barack Obama’s 100th day in office by advancing a $3.4 trillion federal budget for next year — a third of it borrowed — that prevents Republicans from blocking his proposed trillion-dollar expansion of government-provided health care over the next decade.

Wednesday’s House and Senate votes to adopt the nonbinding budget blueprint were only a first step toward Obama’s goal of providing health care coverage for all Americans. The budget plan for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 sets the parameters for subsequent tax and spending bills expected to boost clean energy programs and student aid and extend many of former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts.

The spending plan passed without a single Republican vote in either the House or Senate.

The Senate voted for the plan 53-43. Four Democrats, including recent party-switcher Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, voted against it.

Earlier, the House approved the budget 233-193, with 17 Democrats voting against it.

The measure passed two days after congressional Democrats reached an agreement reconciling House and Senate versions of the budget package.

“Today, for the first time in many, many years, we have a president’s budget … that is a statement of our national values,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said during the final debate on the House floor.

“What is important to us as a nation is reflected in this budget. It’s a very happy day for our country.”

Republicans said the budget reflected reckless taxing and spending priorities that would leave the country in a more fiscally precarious position.

“Budgets are supposed to be about tough decisions, and there are no tough decisions in this budget,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

“It spends an awful lot of money, it raises a lot of taxes, and it puts all of this debt on the backs of our kids and grandkids. This is not the American way. The American way has been about a more limited government.”

In one of the most contentious and politically polarizing decisions this year, Democratic budget negotiators decided to fast-track a key part of the budget process.

Major health care reform is likely to pass this year because the special process, known as budget reconciliation, won’t allow Republicans to filibuster the legislation, as was widely expected.

Democrats, who control 59 seats in the Senate, will be able to pass it with a simple majority vote instead of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

Obama cheered passage of the plan, saying in a statement that it “builds on the steps we’ve taken over the last 100 days to move this economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity.”

The budget outline also makes it plain that Democrats won’t let a mountain of deficits and debt interfere with advancing Obama’s ambitious but costly agenda.

It gives Democrats the option of moving Obama’s health care plan through Congress without the threat of a Republican filibuster, though Democrats promise to try to find bipartisan agreement.

(Source: CBS News / CNN)