Obama jobs bill may not get 51 in SenatePresident Barack Obama’s jobs plan is at risk of getting less than 51 votes Tuesday evening in the Senate as a handful of politically vulnerable moderates hold out on the president’s signature economic proposal.
Adding to the uncertainty, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) who supports the proposal, may be a no-show due to a scheduling conflict, potentially leaving Democrats short of the symbolic simple majority on the jobs bill.
Discussions are still fluid between wavering Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his leadership team — so it remains to be seen how the final vote shakes out. And even if Obama won support from his entire 53-member Democratic Caucus, he would have failed to reach the 60 votes needed to break a GOP-led filibuster.
But falling short of a simple majority in the Democratic-led Senate would be an embarrassment for the president and provide even more fodder for Republicans who have objected to the White House’s repeated calls to pass his jobs plan “now.”
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said last week he’d vote to filibuster the plan and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is also expected to vote against it Tuesday evening. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) criticized the bill, but says he will vote for cloture, to shut off debate.
“The present proposal looks good at first glance, it sounds good in a TV bite,” Webb said, “but in all respect to the people who put it forward, I do not believe it’s smart policy and it does not go where the real economic division lies in our country.”
Shaheen is scheduled to attend a previously planned event Tuesday in Boston,where she’ll receive the “New Englander of the Year” award by a regional business council. It remains to be seen whether Shaheen will return to Washington on Tuesday evening.
Without those four votes, there would only be 50 votes in support of cloture Tuesday evening because all 47 Republicans are expected to vote against considering the plan. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) also has said he’d oppose the president’s jobs plan but has not said how he’d vote on the motion to break the filibuster.
And if Tester votes ‘no’ Tuesday evening, there could be only 49 votes in support of breaking a GOP filibuster on the $447 billion plan, which would spend money on infrastructure development and incentives for companies to hire and would be funded by a 5.6 percent surtax on people earning more than $1 million.
Other than Shaheen, the other senators face reelection next year in their red states where Obama remains unpopular and have generally raised concerns about some of the spending priorities in the plan.
Shaheen has told the leadership team that she’d return to Washington if the vote was close to the 60 needed to break a filibuster.
“The senator supports the measure and told leadership she is fully prepared to return to Washington if her vote is needed for passage,” said Jonathan Lipman, Shaheen’s spokesman.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with Democrats and is retiring next year, indicated he would vote for cloture but only so the chamber could debate the bill and offer amendments. If the current bill came up for a final passage, he would vote no.
“I don’t believe the potential in this act for creating jobs justifies adding another $500 billion to our almost $15 trillion national debt,” he said. “In fact, I think the most important thing we can do to improve our economy, reduce unemployment, create jobs is to being our national debt under control.”
Even Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who supports the plan, acknowledged some defections in the ranks.
“We’re likely to lose two, three, four Democrats,” he told a Chicago TV station Monday. “I don’t know if we’ll pick up any Republicans. We’ve got to pass the president’s jobs package.”
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that he hopes Democrats who don’t like Obama’s jobs bill will put their differences aside and vote for cloture. But he acknowledged that failing to reach a simple majority holds political peril for Obama.
“I think you’re correct, that if we can’t get 51 Democrats to vote for it, it clearly would be argued by Republicans and construed by all of you as undermining the president’s message,” Hoyer told reporters at his weekly briefing.
Indeed, Republicans are already jumping all over it. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the Senate will “yet again prove there is not enough support for that proposal in the Senate and a rejection of the president’s demands to pass the bill in its entirety.”
“Hopefully, after the Senate proves that there isn’t support for the president’s plan, that the president may drop his all-or-nothing approach and begin to work with us on areas of commonality,” Cantor told reporters.
Asked Tuesday about the prospects of Obama’s jobs plan, White House spokesman Josh Earnest wouldn’t make any predictions but said he’s confident it will win “support of the vast majority of Democrats.” And he said Republicans must decide whether they’re standing with a “bipartisan, paid-for plan” that would cut taxes, put teachers and police officers back to work and fund infrastructure, or siding with millionaires and billionaires.
“If I’m a Republican senator and I’m in a situation where I’m trying to evaluate what decision I’m going to make,” Earnest said, “I’ve got to think to myself that it’s going to be pretty difficult to go back to my constituents and say, ‘Look, I took a look at the president’s plan. I know it’s bipartisan. I know he had a specific plan to pay for it, but I just had to vote against it because I was really concerned about the tax rate that millionaires and billionaires would pay.’”
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65630_Page2.html#ixzz1aVyl40WHWhy do the Dems hate Downgrade so much? Don't they know that they have to pass this bill NOW?
Can't even round up the support he needs in his own party. The definition of a lame duck.
