The Senate delivered a wartime rebuff to US President George W. Bush's domestic plans on Wednesday, approving a US.2 trillion budget that provides less than half the US billion in tax cuts he wants to rally the listless US economy.

　　The Republican-controlled chamber used a mostly party-line 56-44 roll call to approve the fiscal blueprint, which endorses just US billion of the president's planned tax cuts through 2013. That vote came after moderate Republican senators joined Democrats to fend off, by 52-48, a last-ditch Republican attempt to add US billion back to the tax reduction package.

　　The final say on the budget's tax-cutting figure will come when House-Senate bargainers work out a compromise tax-and-spending framework.

　　The Republican-led House approved its own budget last week embracing Bush's entire US billion tax-cutting economic plan.

　　Even so, the Senate budget was an unambiguous setback for Bush on one of the pillars of his domestic agenda. It also spotlights the limits on Bush's abilities to persuade lawmakers to support his policies at home, even though the war with Iraq has helped keep his popularity high.

　　"There are just differences that on a bipartisan basis Congress has had with the administration" over taxes, the economy, environment and other issues, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle told reporters before the vote. "I don't think, war or no war, those differences would be any differently reflected."