By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans on Tuesday successfully defended their bid to avoid across-the-board budget caps by using some $38 billion in "emergency" war funding to expand military spending.
Senators voted 51-46, along party lines, to defeat an amendment to an annual defense policy bill that would have barred a Republican-led plan to use the special war funds to avoid the spending cap, but only for the Department of Defense.
The mandatory spending limits have been in place for two years.
In an early gambit in what will likely be a difficult partisan clash over U.S. budget and tax policy this year, Democrats have been threatening to hold up spending bills until lawmakers agree on a plan to scrap mandatory spending limits for domestic programs as well as defense.
Republicans argue that the military should be spared many of the so-called sequestration cuts to ensure national security, but they accuse Democrats of using the issue to camouflage a desire for irresponsible spending.
"It's wrong to use defense as leverage or as blackmail to try to force higher spending in other programs," Republican Representative Mac Thornberry, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters.
Democrats say other programs subject to the spending caps, such as medical research, embassy security and education, are also important.
"If you don't like what happened at Benghazi, and none of us do, you need to spend money on embassy security," said Senator Barbara Mikulski, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, referring to the deadly 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Libya.
Democrats called the war funds plan a "gimmick" and said Republicans should agree to negotiate an easing of the across-the-board budget constraints.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would decline to convene a budget negotiating panel, adding that discretionary spending levels were already set in House and Senate budget plans passed earlier this year.
"There's been a lot of big talk about stopping bills. We'll see whether they really want to do that," McConnell said.
The Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) money, intended to fund ongoing wars, does not count against the budget caps.
President Barack Obama asked for $50 billion in OCO funding in his budget request, but Congress added $38 billion for the Pentagon. The White House has threatened to veto the defense policy bill over the use of the contingency fund money.