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WORLD> America
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Deal announced on stimulus; weekend vote likely
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-07 13:57 WASHINGTON -- With job losses soaring nationwide, Democratic US senators reached agreement with a small group of Republicans Friday night on an economic stimulus measure at the heart of President Barack Obama's plan for combatting the worst recession in decades.
"The American people want us to work together. They don't want to see us dividing along partisan lines on the most serious crisis confronting our country," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of three Republican moderates who broke ranks and pledged their votes for the bill.
Democrat leaders put the cost of the measure at $780 billion, including Obama's signature tax cut of up to $1,000 for working couples. Much of the new spending would be for victims of the recession, in the form of unemployment compensation, health care and food stamps. Other supporters said that the price tag was actually higher, at $827 billion. Republican critics complained that whatever the cost, billions were ticketed for programs that would not create jobs. Official cost figures were not yet available. In a key reduction from the bill that reached the Senate floor earlier in the week, $40 billion would be cut from a "fiscal stabilization fund" for state governments' education costs, though $14 billion to boost the maximum for college Pell Grants by $400 would be preserved, as would aid to local school districts for the No Child Left Behind law and special education. A plan to help the unemployed purchase health insurance would be reduced to a 50 percent subsidy instead of two-thirds. The agreement capped a tense day of backroom 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. Democrats hold a 58-41 majority in the Senate, including two independents. Uncertain of the outcome of the talks, Democrats called Sen. Edward M. Kennedy back to Washington in case his vote was needed. The Massachusetts senator, battling brain cancer, 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. In addition to Collins, Republican Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Olympia Snowe of Maine pledged to vote for the legislation. |
