Reid: We think we've got it
By DAVID ROGERS | 2/5/09 2:13 PM EST
Harry Reid
Meetings intensified among a bipartisan bloc of senators seeking to trim close to $90 billion from a massive economic recovery bill nearing final action.
Meetings intensified Thursday among a bipartisan bloc of senators seeking to trim close to $90 billion from a massive economic recovery bill nearing final action in the chamber.
The White House was not directly involved in the morning talks, but Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said President Barack Obama had promised his economic team would be available to her once the dozen or more senators have reached more of a consensus among themselves.
“I think they will be up here this afternoon, but in many ways I think it’s better for the senators to work out something we’re happy with,” Collins said. “I see the administration as providing technical advice and obviously setting the overall parameters of what the president wants.”
The closed-door meeting reflects an ongoing effort by moderates in both parties to assert themselves in the debate, even as the price tag of the Senate package has risen steadily to over $900 billion, largely because of new tax breaks.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has not ruled out spending cuts prior to passage, but he wants some resolution soon and said Thursday that he thinks he has the 60 votes needed.
“We believe we do,” Reid said.
Nonetheless, the appropriations portion remains the most vulnerable part politically, and the moderates would like to bring the total cost back toward the $800 billion level discussed earlier by the White House.
State fiscal aid and education funding will be among the most sensitive proposed cuts, and if $90 billion is the goal, it would represent an estimated 25% cut. “We are still negotiating,” Collins said, but agreement would yield a political victory for the president, she suggested, and assure him of much wider support in the Senate.
“That’s my hope. That’s the goal,” she said.
The backroom talks follow a day of intense one-on-one lobbying by the president himself Wednesday even as he warned Republicans against making "the perfect the enemy of the essential."
In a Wednesday morning phone call, Obama reached out to his old rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and then held a set of remarkable face-to-face meetings with swing senators, like Collins, without any aides present.
Meanwhile, the Senate pushed toward a vote Thursday on McCain’s own $421 billion recovery package which devotes about 70 percent of its resources to tax cuts — a much greater share than either the House or Senate stimulus bills offered by Democrats.
Included in this number is a $165 billion less-targeted version of Obama's own payroll tax break, as well as a $20 billion homeowner tax credit already adopted by the Senate. And more than many conservatives, McCain is willing to commit new benefits to help the unemployed and families facing foreclosure on their homes.
With 58 votes in their caucus, Senate Democrats have a solid majority for the more than $900 billion package, but they need Republican help to get the 60 needed to waive budget points of order.
It will be easier to work a deal once the bill is off the Senate floor and into final negotiations with the House, but moderates are insisting on some down payment up front.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has been working with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close McCain ally, on an estimated $36 billion package that would make reductions to help pay for new housing initiatives. If this takes shape, or the bipartisan group with Collins and Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska reaches agreement, it could become an important test of where the political center lies.
"It was amazing," Collins told Politico of her 30-minute meeting with Obama. "Presidents don't do that. But it does help to be alone and have a free exchange."
"He's willing to recommend some cuts or at least not oppose cuts," she said of the president. "He told me that he wants to work with Ben Nelson and me and that his economic advisers would be in touch."
Speaking to reporters earlier outside the White House, she also stressed the urgency from Obama's standpoint.
"The president made very clear that he wants the bill, that he wants it this week and that it needs to be of sufficient size to do the job."
This same impatience could be felt among Democrats on the Senate floor.
"Where I live in Missouri, the notion of doing nothing is not an option," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “At the end of the day, this notion that we are going to put this on a shelf, are you kidding me? If we don't do something, we're going to have some explaining to do." |
