Budget Agreed in the Chamber of Deputies

I should have posted on this earlier. Now the haggling it seems moves over to the Senate.

Italian Premier Romano Prodi won a key confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies Saturday night on the center-left government's planned 2007 budget, which included heavily protested tax increases and spending cuts.

Prodi's government decided earlier in the week to put the measures to a confidence vote in a bid to overcome harsh opposition that has slowed its passage in Parliament.

The coalition has a comfortable majority in the Chamber and won the vote 331-231. If the government loses a confidence vote, it has to resign.

The budget, which must be approved by the end of the year, had been bogged down by hundreds of proposed amendments and a filibustering opposition during nearly two months in the lower Chamber of Deputies.....

A tougher challenge could come if the government is forced to call for a confidence vote when the budget is later examined by the Senate, where the center-left has a slim one-seat majority.