Just eight days after his Inauguration, President Obama’s recovery plan cleared the House Wednesday evening after Republicans failed in back-to-back efforts to shift the focus more to tax cuts and traditional highway and water infrastructure projects.
Final passage of the nearly $820 billion package came on a 244-188 vote with no Republicans supporting the president. This was a far cry from the bipartisan showing Obama had hoped for, but he remains firmly in command and Senate Republicans now concede that the president is likely to prevail there as well, with no reason to fear a protracted filibuster fight.
Changes could still be made in the course of the Senate floor debate which will stretch into next week. Republicans are pressing for more tax relief aimed at housing, and there is bipartisan interest in revisiting a small business capital gains exclusion that Obama himself supported as a candidate.
But the White House’s bigger worry could the final negotiations between the House and Senate, where a growing urban-rural split among Democrats threatens to delay a settlement.
This was seen most sharply Tuesday night when rural Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Finance Committee wrecked havoc with a delicately negotiated compromise between House and Senate leaders over the distribution of $87 billion in Medicaid funds in the Obama plan. The same split is infecting disputes over a $1 billion crop disaster aid program favored by the Senate and how big a role the Commerce and Agriculture Departments should play in allocating billions of new dollars sought by Obama to expand access to broadband.
Democrats predicted that Republican support will grow as the bill moves closer to passage after these talks. “This is not Herbert Hoover time, the time for action is now,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) in closing debate.
In an interview, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) pointed to the fact that Democrats had worked with President Bush, a Republican, last fall when the Treasury Department sought a massive $700 billion rescue fund for the financial markets.
“We have acted in a bipartisan fashion working with a Republican president. Now we see President Obama come down to talk to Republicans and before he gets there (Republican leader John) Boehner directs his people to vote against his program.”
In the votes running up to passage, the same partisan climate was evident, though there are clearly 30 to 40 Republican votes for some mix of stimulus spending beyond just tax breaks.
Taxes were the primary focus of the chief Republican alternative which proposed $445 billion in cuts together with about $34 billion in expanded jobless benefits. That measure failed 266-170, and minutes later Republicans came back with a plan to cut about $103 billion from the total package while also shifting some $60 billion into water and highway projects.
That also failed 270-159 with 31 Republicans voting in opposition. And in a prior vote to cut all of the new appropriations 43 Republicans had broken with their party to support the Democrats.
Anticipating trouble, the White House had downplayed its hope of winning over Republicans this early in the House. But to get no votes from the opposition party was striking, given the efforts Obama had made to reach out.
"I don't think this is the final reckoning on this bill by any sense of the imagination," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "I think the process will work, and ... I don't think people will be able to ignore the human stories of suffering that's going on in the economy right now."
He added: "I do believe that there will be people in districts all over the country that will wonder why, when there's a good bill to get the economy moving again, why we still seem to be playing political gotcha."
Just a day before the vote, Obama came to the Capitol to meet with rank-and-file Republicans in both the House and Senate, and he planned to host congressional leaders from both parties Wednesday evening at a reception in the White House residence.
"Someone reported that this was a celebration party for passage of the bill in the House," Boehner joked to reporters before casting his vote against the bill. "If so, I don't know why they'd want the skunk at the garden party. But I'm going to go and smile."
In earlier remarks before business executives Wednesday, the president had addressed Republican complaints about the bill and sought to underline business support for the measure which includes $275 billion in tax cuts as passed by the House.
“Most of the money we’re investing as part of this plan will get out the door immediately and go directly to job-creation, generating or saving three to four million new jobs,” Obama said in the East Room, alluding to the GOP claims that the package won’t be immediately boost the economy. “And the vast majority of these jobs will be created in the private sector – because, as these CEOs well know, business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country.”
Obama’s out-reach seems one part political but another simply communication. However huge in itself, the recovery bill is just the first piece in a larger action plan in which he must address a new global scheme for financial regulations, the foreclosure crisis for homeowners and a banking industry teetering near insolvency.
A phone call Tuesday afternoon between the president and Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe is illustrative. The Maine moderate had announced her support that morning for the Obama package in the Finance panel, and she told Politico the president called to thank her after also meeting with her colleagues in the Capitol.
“He has said and he emphasized repeatedly yesterday we are in unprecedented times,” Snowe said. “The crisis is so great that we can ill afford to be miscommunicating between branches and that’s what it all about .”
As seen in the Committee Finance Committee markup Tuesday night, Democrats may need to work on some of their internal communications as well.
The $87 billion in Medicaid funding is the largest single piece of state aid in the president’s plan and will be hugely valuable to governors struggling with deficits of their own. House and Senate leaders had agreed to effectively let the two chambers have an equal voice, with a little more than 50% of the money distributed according to a Senate formula and the remainder under a House-backed system of bonus payments to target the most relief to states with the biggest increase in unemployment.
Finance Chairman Max Baucus, whose home state of Montana would fare better under a pure Senate formula, had sought to keep faith with this compromise with a 60-40 Senate-House split. But he was overwhelmed by Republicans and rural state senators on his panel, and the final bill goes toward an 80-20 split.
The result is to cut the House bonus payments by more than half, impacting billions of dollars for major states like New York, Michigan and California with large delegations in the House. And this kills any expectation of a quick deal once the Senate has completed its bill.
“There will be a conference,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Cal.) flatly told Politico.
Here's a list of the House Democrats who voted against the economic stimulus. The bill passed on a 244-188 vote.
Allen Boyd (FL),
Bobby Bright (Ala.)
Jim Cooper (Tenn),
Brad Ellsworth (Ind.)
Parker Griffith (Ala.)
Paul Kanjorski (Pa)
Frank Kratovil (Md)
Walt Minnick (Idaho)
Collin Peterson (Minn.)
Heath Shuler (N.C.)
Gene Taylor (Miss.)
Final passage of the nearly $820 billion package came on a 244-188 vote with no Republicans supporting the president. This was a far cry from the bipartisan showing Obama had hoped for, but he remains firmly in command and Senate Republicans now concede that the president is likely to prevail there as well, with no reason to fear a protracted filibuster fight.
Changes could still be made in the course of the Senate floor debate which will stretch into next week. Republicans are pressing for more tax relief aimed at housing, and there is bipartisan interest in revisiting a small business capital gains exclusion that Obama himself supported as a candidate.
But the White House’s bigger worry could the final negotiations between the House and Senate, where a growing urban-rural split among Democrats threatens to delay a settlement.
This was seen most sharply Tuesday night when rural Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Finance Committee wrecked havoc with a delicately negotiated compromise between House and Senate leaders over the distribution of $87 billion in Medicaid funds in the Obama plan. The same split is infecting disputes over a $1 billion crop disaster aid program favored by the Senate and how big a role the Commerce and Agriculture Departments should play in allocating billions of new dollars sought by Obama to expand access to broadband.
Democrats predicted that Republican support will grow as the bill moves closer to passage after these talks. “This is not Herbert Hoover time, the time for action is now,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) in closing debate.
In an interview, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) pointed to the fact that Democrats had worked with President Bush, a Republican, last fall when the Treasury Department sought a massive $700 billion rescue fund for the financial markets.
“We have acted in a bipartisan fashion working with a Republican president. Now we see President Obama come down to talk to Republicans and before he gets there (Republican leader John) Boehner directs his people to vote against his program.”
In the votes running up to passage, the same partisan climate was evident, though there are clearly 30 to 40 Republican votes for some mix of stimulus spending beyond just tax breaks.
Taxes were the primary focus of the chief Republican alternative which proposed $445 billion in cuts together with about $34 billion in expanded jobless benefits. That measure failed 266-170, and minutes later Republicans came back with a plan to cut about $103 billion from the total package while also shifting some $60 billion into water and highway projects.
That also failed 270-159 with 31 Republicans voting in opposition. And in a prior vote to cut all of the new appropriations 43 Republicans had broken with their party to support the Democrats.
Anticipating trouble, the White House had downplayed its hope of winning over Republicans this early in the House. But to get no votes from the opposition party was striking, given the efforts Obama had made to reach out.
"I don't think this is the final reckoning on this bill by any sense of the imagination," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "I think the process will work, and ... I don't think people will be able to ignore the human stories of suffering that's going on in the economy right now."
He added: "I do believe that there will be people in districts all over the country that will wonder why, when there's a good bill to get the economy moving again, why we still seem to be playing political gotcha."
Just a day before the vote, Obama came to the Capitol to meet with rank-and-file Republicans in both the House and Senate, and he planned to host congressional leaders from both parties Wednesday evening at a reception in the White House residence.
"Someone reported that this was a celebration party for passage of the bill in the House," Boehner joked to reporters before casting his vote against the bill. "If so, I don't know why they'd want the skunk at the garden party. But I'm going to go and smile."
In earlier remarks before business executives Wednesday, the president had addressed Republican complaints about the bill and sought to underline business support for the measure which includes $275 billion in tax cuts as passed by the House.
“Most of the money we’re investing as part of this plan will get out the door immediately and go directly to job-creation, generating or saving three to four million new jobs,” Obama said in the East Room, alluding to the GOP claims that the package won’t be immediately boost the economy. “And the vast majority of these jobs will be created in the private sector – because, as these CEOs well know, business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country.”
Obama’s out-reach seems one part political but another simply communication. However huge in itself, the recovery bill is just the first piece in a larger action plan in which he must address a new global scheme for financial regulations, the foreclosure crisis for homeowners and a banking industry teetering near insolvency.
A phone call Tuesday afternoon between the president and Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe is illustrative. The Maine moderate had announced her support that morning for the Obama package in the Finance panel, and she told Politico the president called to thank her after also meeting with her colleagues in the Capitol.
“He has said and he emphasized repeatedly yesterday we are in unprecedented times,” Snowe said. “The crisis is so great that we can ill afford to be miscommunicating between branches and that’s what it all about .”
As seen in the Committee Finance Committee markup Tuesday night, Democrats may need to work on some of their internal communications as well.
The $87 billion in Medicaid funding is the largest single piece of state aid in the president’s plan and will be hugely valuable to governors struggling with deficits of their own. House and Senate leaders had agreed to effectively let the two chambers have an equal voice, with a little more than 50% of the money distributed according to a Senate formula and the remainder under a House-backed system of bonus payments to target the most relief to states with the biggest increase in unemployment.
Finance Chairman Max Baucus, whose home state of Montana would fare better under a pure Senate formula, had sought to keep faith with this compromise with a 60-40 Senate-House split. But he was overwhelmed by Republicans and rural state senators on his panel, and the final bill goes toward an 80-20 split.
The result is to cut the House bonus payments by more than half, impacting billions of dollars for major states like New York, Michigan and California with large delegations in the House. And this kills any expectation of a quick deal once the Senate has completed its bill.
“There will be a conference,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Cal.) flatly told Politico.
Here's a list of the House Democrats who voted against the economic stimulus. The bill passed on a 244-188 vote.
Allen Boyd (FL),
Bobby Bright (Ala.)
Jim Cooper (Tenn),
Brad Ellsworth (Ind.)
Parker Griffith (Ala.)
Paul Kanjorski (Pa)
Frank Kratovil (Md)
Walt Minnick (Idaho)
Collin Peterson (Minn.)
Heath Shuler (N.C.)
Gene Taylor (Miss.)
Do you think it's alarming that the bill hard ZERO Republican votes?
What could be done to get the GOP on board with this bill?
Do you think it matters if there is no bipartisan support for the bill?
5 comments:
This is awful. I did not vote my legislator into office to give away my hard earned money! Where do these people think the money will come from? I did not agree with the $700b Bush passed, and i do not agree with the further $820b package now!! When did it become ok for the government to so vigorously meddle in personal affairs? I dislike a large government, and nearly any government intervention at all, as I have seen the terrible outcomes of past situations. The government was done few things in this country well. I feel that not only does the government need to put more faith in the American people, but the American people need more faith in themselves! WE can fix this with less taxes, less regulations, less laws, and more rights! So I say screw Capitol Hill! Lets become a nation that has faith in its people, its economy, its traditions and in itself!
The economic situation that the U.S. is in right now is obviously one of the most pressing problems on everyone's mind. It places everyone on a level ground since every person- from the poorest unemployed man to the richest banker- is being affected by it. Since one of Obama's main focuses is on this stimulus/rescue program that he has in mind, there is help coming from a higher power, but it's not going to do any good if the plans can't get out of the voting stage and into action. If people support Obama and his ideas or not, they are going to have to work towards compromise policies in order to help the economy. As many have said in the past few weeks- the politics have to be left out-. In order to get anything done, everyone is going to have to tone down the fact that democrats don't like republicans and vice-versa and look at what is best for the country right now instead of who is presenting the idea.
I think that right now everyone needs too look at what is the best for the country. Not to just shun any bill that comes along. I don't know every detail of the bill, but I am disappointed that not one republican voted for it.
This bill goes against everything the GOP stands for of course they didn't vote it. The Medicare crap in this bill needs to be gone before any republican is going to look at it. Omaba says that spending all this money with create jobs but he is creating a bunch of government jobs.. who does that help exactly?(we don't need more government) To get the Republicans on board with the bill he will have to cut the Medicare, more of the money will need to go to highways and water, and cut down the total amount. I personally think that if this passes and we spend all $820b.. which is money that isn't even there oh! wait HIGHER TAXES and MORE GOVERNMENT telling us what to do. All this money in the economy will only lead to inflation out the roof. We should be spend as little as possible.. recessions happen!
I think that we should just actually read the bills before agreeing.I thinks thats the main reason why our country is in the problem that we are in now.
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