WASHINGTON (AP) — The GOP-controlled House Thursday passed legislation to replace a looming 10 percent cut to the military budget with cuts to domestic programs like food stamps and health care.

The partisan 218-199 vote sends the measure to the Senate, where it's a dead letter with Democratic leaders, who insist on keeping the automatic cuts in place until Republicans agree to a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts to address the nation's deficit woes.

The automatic spending cuts, totaling $110 billion next year, are punishment for the failure of last year's deficit-reduction "supercommittee" to strike a deal. Lawmakers in both parties want to avoid the automatic cuts, but Democrats are strongly opposed to the GOP approach, which slices more than $300 billion from domestic programs over the coming decade to prevent the Pentagon from absorbing a $55 billion blow to its budget next year and also hits domestic agencies with an 8 percent cut to their day-to-day operating budgets.