(Adds Grassley comments, AMT patch adopted and byline)
By Richard Cowan and Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - An $825 billion U.S. economic stimulus bill edged forward on Tuesday as a key Senate committee approved a big piece of it and President Barack Obama met with Republican lawmakers in a bid to broaden support.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, by a vote of 21-9, on Tuesday approved $365.6 billion in spending -- its portion of the $825 billion stimulus bill, and sent it to the full Senate to consider. The House of Representatives Appropriations Committee approved a similar measure last week.
A tax-cut component of the bill was still being worked on by the Senate Finance Committee, which adopted one provision to insulate middle-class taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax for a year, adding almost $70 billion to the cost of the package.
As the appropriations panel approved the bill, Obama huddled on Capitol Hill with Republicans, who have been pushing for more tax cuts and less spending.
The full House was expected to begin debating its version of the measure later on Tuesday while the Senate was aiming to pass its version of the legislation sometime next week.
"Over the past two months more than 1 million jobs have been lost. We can expect similar job losses to continue if we fail to act," said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat.
Several Republicans on the appropriations panel complained the measure, which aims to jump-start the stumbling economy, contained spending that would fail to produce jobs and was being rushed through Congress too quickly.
"We are throwing money down the tubes," Senator Christopher Bond, a Missouri Republican, said, adding that the bill would fail to cure a credit crisis at the heart of the sick economy.
Besides providing a massive injection of government spending, the legislation written by Democrats, who control Congress, also would provide about $275 billion in tax cuts and $180 billion in other spending.
The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Charles Grassley, groused that Republicans were largely shut out of developing the tax part of the stimulus package. "We were never really at the negotiating table," he said.
"I want to make clear that most on our side agree with President Obama that a stimulus package is very, very necessary," he said. "Where we differ is the degree to which the engine ought to be government or private sector."
However, Grassley told reporters last week the size of the tax part of the stimulus bill was "about right" and said most Republicans support about 90 percent of the Democrats' overall bill.
The panel unanimously adopted a Grassley provision to fix for one year the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was originally designed to ensure wealthy people paid taxes, but instead is hitting millions of middle-income families.
House Republicans want a two-year fix.
Another Republican amendment in the Senate Finance Committee to turn billions of dollars in grants to states into zero-interest loans failed. (Reporting by Richard Cowan and Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Patricia Zengerle and Bill Trott)