Stimulus Unlikely To Pass Senate Tonight
In an uncertain reach across party lines, Senate moderates struggled for a compromise on economic stimulus legislation Thursday as the government spit out grim new jobless figures and President Barack Obama warned of more bad news ahead.
With partisan tensions rising, several Republican attempts to remake the bill - with higher tax cuts, lower spending and fresh relief for homeowners - failed on party-line votes.
"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 at the heart of his economic recovery plan. He implored lawmakers in both parties to "rise to this moment."
A CBS News poll released Thursday found support for Mr. Obama's more than $800 billion bill above 50 percetn but declining.
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.
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.
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.
Either approach remained a possibility for the Democratic leadership. One path could lead to passage with as few as 60 votes, the minimum needed, while the other presented the opportunity for a larger bipartisan success for the young administration.
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.