Demanding a federal budget that is fair, responsible, and meets our nation's priorities

Thursday, January 31, 2008

McConnell Threatens to Filibuster Stimulus

For the first time this year, that word is being heard again in the Senate -- the one echoed all last year in the chamber, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) believes he may have the votes to filibuster the Senate Finance Committee stimulus package. You heard right. Yes, the $157 billion package that cleared Committee "has become yet another Christmas tree," McConnell says, and he vows to block it.

Complicating matters for the Democrats who need 60 votes to pass it over McConnell's objections is the presidential primary calendar. Democrats may need up to six Republican votes to break a filibuster; with Senators Obama and Clinton otherwise occupied for the time being, they may need up to eight -- probably a bridge too far, for now.

So Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has scheduled a (cloture) vote to end debate on the Senate's stimulus bill. It's expected to occur late Monday. The plan is to see how many GOP Senators are willing to go along with McConnell in a series of politically difficult votes on adding rebate checks for low-income senior citizens and disabled veterans, food stamps, unemployment benefits, low-income heating, and other Christmas trifles to the House bill. But they won't vote 'til the candidates come home, perhaps after Super Tuesday.

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[The Senate can safely spare several days on the stimulus, by the way: The Center on Budget assures us that so long as Congress enacts the stimulus before mid-March, the rebates will start to go out in mid-May. In fact, the Finance Committee plan would actually would accelerate the effect of the stimulus. Because the plan adds unemployment benefits to the House bill, they would reach unemployed workers 30 days from enactment -- two months before the first rebate checks would go out!]