Officials say tentative stimulus deal reached
WASHINGTON – Amid stunning new job losses and yet another bank failure, key senators and the White House reached tentative agreement Friday night on an economic stimulus measure at the heart of President Barack Obama's recovery plan. Two officials said the emerging agreement was for a bill with a $780 billion price tag, but there was no immediate confirmation.
The tentative agreement capped a tense day of back room negotiations in which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, joined by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, sought to attract the support of enough Republicans to give the measure the needed 60-vote majority.
Officials strongly suggested that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's vote would be needed to assure passage. The Massachusetts Democrat, battling a brain tumor, has been in Florida in recent days and has not been in the Capitol since suffering a seizure on Inauguration Day more than two weeks ago. The senator's office did not comment.
Reid met privately in the Capitol with members of his rank-and-file to present the proposed deal.
At $780 billion, the legislation would be smaller than the measure that cleared the House on a party-line vote last week. It also would mean a sharp cut from the bill that has been the subject of Senate debate for a week. That measure stood at $937 billion.
Beyond the numbers, though, any agreement would mark a victory for the new president and would keep Democratic leaders on track to fulfill their promise of delivering him a bill to sign by the end of next week.
Earlier Friday, Obama said further delay would be "inexcusable and irresponsible" given the worst monthly jobs report in a generation — 598,000 positions lost in January and the national unemployment rate rising to 7.6 percent. Late in the day federal regulators announced the closure of First Bank Financial Services in Georgia, the seventh failure this year of a federally insured bank.
At the Capitol, the tension was thick.
"The world is waiting to see what we're going to do in the next 24 hours," said Reid who has spent much of the week trying to balance demands among moderates in both parties with pressure for a larger bill from liberals in his own rank and file.
By midday, the majority leader had spoken once with Obama by phone and five times with Emanuel. He met with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, but it was not immediately clear whether a deal was within reach.
"We're clearly not there yet," said Collins, who had met with Obama at the White House earlier in the week. "I'm still hopeful that we can achieve a compromise because the stakes are high and the goal is important."
The bill's price tag stood at $937 billion, an enormous total that has risen in recent days with the addition of tax breaks for consumers who purchase homes or cars.
One Republican-proposed document outlined proposed cuts of more than $85 billion. Most of that _$60 billion — would come from money Democrats want to send to the states to avoid budget cuts for schools as well as law enforcement and other programs.
Talk of cuts in proposed education funds triggered a counterattack from advocates of school spending as well as unhappiness among Democrats.
One, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, told reporters he and others hoped that some of the funds on the chopping block would be restored next week when negotiations open on a House-Senate compromise.
At its core, the legislation is designed to ease the worst economic recession in generations, and combines hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending with tax cuts. Much of the money would go for victims of the recession in the form of food stamps, unemployment compensation and health care. There are funds, as well, for construction of highways and bridges.
But the administration also decided to use the bill to make a down payment on key domestic initiatives, including creation of a new health technology industry and so-called green jobs designed to make the country less dependent on imported oil.
And Democrats in Congress decided to add additional huge sums for the states struggling with the recession, as well as billions more for favored programs such as parks, the repair of monuments in federal cemeteries, health and science research and more.
With Obama enjoying post-inauguration support in the polls and the economy shrinking, Democratic leaders in Congress have confidently predicted they would have a bill to the president's desk by mid-February.
But Republicans, freed of the need to defend former President George W. Bush's policies, have pivoted quickly to criticize the bill for its size and what they consider wasteful spending.
The entire Republican rank and file voted against the measure in the House, effectively prodding senators to take up the same cause.
In the intervening days, Republicans have appeared to catch the administration and its allies off-guard, holding up relatively small items for ridicule and routinely seizing on comments from Democrats critical of the House-passed bill.
At the same time, they have stressed a desire to help the economy but have said they prefer tax cuts and spending that would have a more immediate impact on job creation.
Democrats hold a 58-41 majority in the Senate, but 60 votes are needed for passage of the bill because it would raise the federal deficit.
Privately, Democrats in Congress have been critical of Obama and his aides for failing to counter the Republicans more effectively. In recent days, the president has sharpened his rhetoric against unnamed critics of the bill whom he accused of trying to re-establish the "failed policies" of the past eight years.
As Reid struggled to nail down the necessary votes, the White House announced Obama would travel to Florida and Indiana next week to campaign for a stimulus measure. Both states have Republican senators. The president also is scheduled to hold a prime-time news conference on Monday where questions about the economy are likely to dominate.
Despite the struggle, some Republicans seemed to sense the White House would ultimately prevail, and sought political mileage.
Obama "could have had a very, very impressive victory early on," said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who heads the Senate Republican campaign committee. "But this is not turning out to be an impressive victory. it is turning out to be a little bit of a black eye. MCL comment: What makes this debate funny to me is that the same people who's fighting this bill(the Republicans) were the same ones that green lighted every spending bill George W. Bush wanted from Iraq to tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires which got us into these deficits in the first place. Obama did a great thing last night he reminded people whose fault it was and not too many Republicans and their allies in the right wing whore press can't deny it.
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