The House passed stopgap legislation Tuesday that would prevent a partial shutdown of government on Friday.

The House voted 335-91 in favor of the measure that slashes $4 billion in spending and is now headed to the Senate where Majority Leader Harry Reid said it would pass “in the next 48 hours.”

Democrats preferred a 30-day spending bill but Republicans rejected that idea.

The measure would keep the government running for two weeks to buy time for the Republican House, the Democratic Senate and the Obama White House to try to reach agreement on longer-term legislation to fund the government through the end of the budget year. It’s a relatively mild volley in a party-defining spending battle that promises to go on for months or years.

Republicans want to slash a whopping $60 billion-plus from agency budgets over the coming months as a down payment on larger cuts later in the year, but are settling for just $4 billion in especially easy cuts as the price for the two-week stopgap bill.

Negotiations over a longer-term solution are likely to be very difficult as Boehner seeks to satisfy his 87-member freshman class — many of whom were elected with tea party support — but still manage to reach a deal with Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House.

Tuesday’s measure would keep federal agencies running at last year’s spending levels through March 18, in line with two prior spending bills passed last year under Democratic control of Congress. It also adds in $4 billion in cuts to various programs, including some that Obama has sought to terminate and others that have billions of dollars set aside for pet projects sought by lawmakers. That money’s not needed since Republicans have banned earmarks for at least two years.

READ MORE: FOX NEWS