WASHINGTON — After a sweeping vote by conservative Republicans controlling the House and President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies, a bipartisan budget pact is in the hands of the Senate, where it will encounter stronger but probably futile resistance from Republicans.

The modest package passed by the House on Thursday would ease the harshest effects of another round of automatic spending cuts set to hit the Pentagon and domestic agencies next month. Supporters of the measure easily beat back attacks on it from conservative organizations that sometimes raise money by stoking conflict within the Republican Party.

At the same time, Democrats who were upset that the bill would not extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed suppressed their doubts to advance the measure to the Democratic-led Senate, where Obama’s allies appear set to clear it next week for his signature.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday morning he would confer with GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to push consideration of the budget agreement sooner.

Senate Democrats promise to force a vote on extending unemployment benefits when the chamber reconvenes next year. They hope that political pressure after 1.3 million people lose their benefits on Dec. 28 will force GOP leaders to knuckle under and extend aid averaging under $300 a week to people who’ve been out of work longer than six months.

The bipartisan bill breezed through the House on a 332-94 vote, with lopsided majorities of Republicans and Democrats alike voting in favor.

Thursday’s vote was a big win for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who earlier in the day lobbed another salvo at conservative interest groups that routinely attack Republicans for supporting legislation they deem not conservative enough. But that is what Republicans can achieve given the realities of a divided Washington.

“If you’re for reducing the budget deficit, then you should be voting for this bill. If you’re for cutting the size of government, you should be supporting this budget,” Boehner said. “These are the things that I came here to do, and this budget does them. Is it perfect? Does it go far enough? No, not at all. I think it’s going to take a lot more work to get our arms around our debt and our deficits.”

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida criticized the deal, saying it takes the country in the wrong direction.

“I mean, compromise just for the sake of compromise, so we can feel good about each other, I don’t think is progress for the country,” Rubio said Friday on CBS “This Morning.”

GOP struggle widens as Boehner rebukes hard right

WASHINGTON — The Republican establishment’s much-anticipated pushback against the tea party wing is underway. House Speaker John Boehner made that clear Thursday, when he renewed his denunciation of groups that try to defeat GOP incumbents they consider too willing to compromise with Democrats.

Some Republican loyalists wonder what took so long. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently took steps to help mainstream Republicans in party primaries, but Boehner’s high-profile outburst will move the effort to the GOP’s front burners.

Cheering him on are mainstream Republicans who angrily watched for three years as hard-right groups exercised remarkable clout in the party, the Congress and elections. Tea party-backed nominees helped the GOP win control of the House in 2010, but they also lost several Senate races seen as winnable, keeping the Senate in Democratic hands.