No Senate Agreement Yet On Stimulus Plan
AP
Senate moderates worked to cut tens of billions of dollars from economic stimulus legislation Thursday in hopes of clearing the way for passage as the government spit out grim new jobless figures and President Barack Obama warned of more bad news ahead.
With partisan tensions rising, a Republican alternative with higher tax cuts and far less spending than the administration favors was defeated on a pure party-line vote, 57-40. Other GOP attempts to make significant changes in the bill appeared doomed, as well.
After fitful, secretive talks lasting well into the evening, the would-be compromisers remained shy of agreement, and Majority Leader Harry Reid announced they could have another day to work at it.
A new CBS News poll shows 81 percent of Americans believe Mr. Obama is trying for bipartisanship, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.
"The time for talk is over. The time for action is now," declared Mr. Obama as the Senate plodded through a fourth day of debate on the legislation. He implored lawmakers in both parties to "rise to this moment."
Mr. Obama added he would "love to see additional improvements" in the bill, a gesture to the moderates from both parties who were at work trying to trim the bill with a newly recalculated, $937 billion price tag.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the group was discussing reductions in the bill in the range of $100 billion or more and expressed optimism about the outcome. No details were available.
Increasingly, the events that mattered most were not the long roll calls on the Senate floor, but the private conversations in which the White House and Democratic leaders sought - either with the support of a large group of centrist lawmakers or without them - to clear the bill at the heart of the president's recovery program.
"As I have explained to people in that group, they cannot hold the president of the United States hostage," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "If they think they're going to rewrite this bill and Barack Obama is going to walk away from what he is trying to do for the American people, they've got another thought coming."
Republicans countered that neither the president nor Democratic congressional leaders have been willing to seek common ground on the first major bill of the new administration.
"We're not having meaningful negotiations. ... It's a bad way to start," said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was Mr. Obama's opponent in last fall's presidential campaign.
In an Associated Press interview, he said Mr. Obama "gave the Democrats the leeway to basically shut out Republicans starting with the House and now here in the Senate, and I don't think that's good."
McCain's penchant for working across party lines has irritated fellow Republicans in the past, but he was not taking part in bipartisan talks on trimming the stimulus bill.
Instead, he advanced an alternative that highlighted the differences between the two political parties.
It carried a price tag of $421 billion, less than half the White House-backed measure. The majority of that was in the form of a one-year cut in the payroll tax and reductions in the two lowest income tax brackets.
Nearly 20 senators from both parties met twice during the day and reviewed a list of possible cuts totaling nearly $80 billion. They included elimination of at least $40 billion in aid to the states, which have budget crises of their own, as well as $1.4 billion ticketed for the National Science Foundation.
There was no sign the group of self-appointed compromisers had agreed to support the reductions, but even if they had the numbers were far short of what some were looking for.
The legislation is a blend of federal spending and tax cuts that supporters say can create or preserve at least 3 million jobs. They cite the tax cuts for lower-income workers, as well as more money for jobless benefits, worker training, food stamps, health care, education and public works projects such as highways and mass transit.
Critics contend the bill is bloated with spending for items that won't create jobs, such as smoking prevention programs or efforts to combat a future pandemic flu outbreak.
And while polls show Mr. Obama is popular and the public supports recovery legislation, Republicans have maneuvered in the past several days to identify and ridicule relatively small items in the bill.
Whatever the public relations battle, Republicans have tried without success so far to reduce spending in the measure and were ready with additional attempts during the day.
The legislation is a key early test for Mr. Obama, who has been in office just two weeks and has made economic recovery his top priority.
One minor victory for Mr. Obama came Wednesday night when the Senate softened - but would not remove - a "Buy American" protectionist measure that drew strong criticism from major U.S. trading partners including Japan, Australia and Canada.
The bill sent to the Senate by the House of Representatives demanded that only U.S.-made iron and steel be used in infrastructure projects finance by the stimulus bill. The Senate added to the edict all manufactured products used in such projects.
In the face of warnings by Mr. Obama that such rules could cause trade wars, the Senate agreed Wednesday night to specify in the bill that U.S. international trade agreements should not be violated. It rejected, however, an effort by Republican Sen. John McCain, Mr. Obama's opponent in last year's presidential campaign, to remove the stipulations altogether.
Canada's trade minister, Stockwell Day, praised the Senate action and expressed optimism Thursday that U.S. and Canadian officials could come up with "what we hope will be a successful conclusion" to ward off trade retaliation.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. With partisan tensions rising, a Republican alternative with higher tax cuts and far less spending than the administration favors was defeated on a pure party-line vote, 57-40. Other GOP attempts to make significant changes in the bill appeared doomed, as well.
After fitful, secretive talks lasting well into the evening, the would-be compromisers remained shy of agreement, and Majority Leader Harry Reid announced they could have another day to work at it.
A new CBS News poll shows 81 percent of Americans believe Mr. Obama is trying for bipartisanship, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.
"The time for talk is over. The time for action is now," declared Mr. Obama as the Senate plodded through a fourth day of debate on the legislation. He implored lawmakers in both parties to "rise to this moment."
Mr. Obama added he would "love to see additional improvements" in the bill, a gesture to the moderates from both parties who were at work trying to trim the bill with a newly recalculated, $937 billion price tag.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the group was discussing reductions in the bill in the range of $100 billion or more and expressed optimism about the outcome. No details were available.
Increasingly, the events that mattered most were not the long roll calls on the Senate floor, but the private conversations in which the White House and Democratic leaders sought - either with the support of a large group of centrist lawmakers or without them - to clear the bill at the heart of the president's recovery program.
"As I have explained to people in that group, they cannot hold the president of the United States hostage," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "If they think they're going to rewrite this bill and Barack Obama is going to walk away from what he is trying to do for the American people, they've got another thought coming."
Republicans countered that neither the president nor Democratic congressional leaders have been willing to seek common ground on the first major bill of the new administration.
"We're not having meaningful negotiations. ... It's a bad way to start," said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was Mr. Obama's opponent in last fall's presidential campaign.
In an Associated Press interview, he said Mr. Obama "gave the Democrats the leeway to basically shut out Republicans starting with the House and now here in the Senate, and I don't think that's good."
McCain's penchant for working across party lines has irritated fellow Republicans in the past, but he was not taking part in bipartisan talks on trimming the stimulus bill.
Instead, he advanced an alternative that highlighted the differences between the two political parties.
It carried a price tag of $421 billion, less than half the White House-backed measure. The majority of that was in the form of a one-year cut in the payroll tax and reductions in the two lowest income tax brackets.
Nearly 20 senators from both parties met twice during the day and reviewed a list of possible cuts totaling nearly $80 billion. They included elimination of at least $40 billion in aid to the states, which have budget crises of their own, as well as $1.4 billion ticketed for the National Science Foundation.
There was no sign the group of self-appointed compromisers had agreed to support the reductions, but even if they had the numbers were far short of what some were looking for.
"The president made a strong case for a proposal that would be in the neighborhood of $800 billion," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who met with Mr. Obama at the White House on Wednesday.
The legislation is a blend of federal spending and tax cuts that supporters say can create or preserve at least 3 million jobs. They cite the tax cuts for lower-income workers, as well as more money for jobless benefits, worker training, food stamps, health care, education and public works projects such as highways and mass transit.
Critics contend the bill is bloated with spending for items that won't create jobs, such as smoking prevention programs or efforts to combat a future pandemic flu outbreak.
And while polls show Mr. Obama is popular and the public supports recovery legislation, Republicans have maneuvered in the past several days to identify and ridicule relatively small items in the bill.
Whatever the public relations battle, Republicans have tried without success so far to reduce spending in the measure and were ready with additional attempts during the day.
The legislation is a key early test for Mr. Obama, who has been in office just two weeks and has made economic recovery his top priority.
One minor victory for Mr. Obama came Wednesday night when the Senate softened - but would not remove - a "Buy American" protectionist measure that drew strong criticism from major U.S. trading partners including Japan, Australia and Canada.
The bill sent to the Senate by the House of Representatives demanded that only U.S.-made iron and steel be used in infrastructure projects finance by the stimulus bill. The Senate added to the edict all manufactured products used in such projects.
In the face of warnings by Mr. Obama that such rules could cause trade wars, the Senate agreed Wednesday night to specify in the bill that U.S. international trade agreements should not be violated. It rejected, however, an effort by Republican Sen. John McCain, Mr. Obama's opponent in last year's presidential campaign, to remove the stipulations altogether.
Canada's trade minister, Stockwell Day, praised the Senate action and expressed optimism Thursday that U.S. and Canadian officials could come up with "what we hope will be a successful conclusion" to ward off trade retaliation.
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Pay attention...Obama is not being truthful with you!! And you dont even see that.
If the GOP is wrong, then he wont be able to make them see his way. So, why does he need them to get onboard when he believes they are wrong and what they propose is wrong? He should do what he thinks is right? Why would he do what he thinks is wrong?
Posted by Mortar29
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Mortar, you still don''t get it, do you?? I finally realized why. You apparently are incapable of comprehending that Obama is willing to compromise. Must be a foreign concept to you.
But, to claim Reagan raised taxes every year? Silly!
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Posted by Mortar29
Check it out...Reagan cut taxes in 1981 but followed that with two huge tax increases. The first tax increase was in 1982 and the other was in 1983. Those tax increases really hurt middle class families during Reagans two terms.....
Posted by Mortar29
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Hey Mortar? Pay attention. No one but YOU seems to care.
Posted by Mortar29
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That may be how YOU would deal with it, and how Bush would deal with it, but I say again, from the beginning of his candidacy, Obama said that he wanted bipartisanship - that both the legislative and executive branches should work TOGETHER. And the legislative branch INCLUDES Republicans.......
And the supply side taxcuts by Reagan had the largest influx of tax money into the treasury in history. Go look at the US Treasury records. They cut taxes, and the government got more money!! Plus, the economy roared to life off the back of the malaise of Carter.
This is basic economic fact.
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Posted by Mortar29
Wrong, Reagan increased taxes every year of his presidency and increased the size of government. So much for your myph of Reagan....
Posted by Mortar29
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Well, if McCain meant what he said during the campaign about being willing to reach across the aisle, it should be HIM. But I don''t think it will be possible to identify just one Republican Senator as "the first." It will be a group. In all probability, there will eventually be agreement because the GOP Sentators know they take a huge risk of looking like they don''t want to help the American people if none of them support the efforts of a popular new President to solve the economic crisis.
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Posted by Mortar29
Who cares????
So, why is he trying to get them to vote for this?
Posted by Mortar29
--------------------
The President DOES need at least a handful of Republican Sentators to vote for the legislation for it to be passed in the Senate, and he''s already saif that he''s willing to compromise on the legislation, but far more importantly to him, he is obviously wanting to end the partisanship and have the Congress and the White House work together to solve this huge economic crisis. Obama said from the very beginning that if elected, he would try to work WITH the opposite side, unlike Bush. He attempted that by going to the House Republicans, but they rebuffed him. We can only hope that the Republican Senators will behave differently. We''ll see.......
The Bush years did have a tax cut (which was good). The problem is that pending increased exponentially. Bush was not a conservative.
The tax cuts werent the problem!
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Posted by Mortar29
Wrong, JFK raised the taxes for the wealthy....YOUR TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS HAS NEVER WORKED!!!