“A bill needs to get out of committee for a floor vote so hopefully this was a procedural vote. Vote it to the floor then vote against it.”
Ok..educate me please. I truly don’t know all of the ends and outs. Don’t they have enough democrats in every committe to pass what-ever they want without republicans? They have a majority.
The Democrats don’t need the Republicans for any of this. What they don’t want is to be sitting ducks when this all goes south and doesn’t help the economy and the RNC has the supreme talking point “Republicans wanted to put money directly into the pocket of the American taxpayer; the Democrats wanted to pick that pocket and put money everywhere else.” If they don’t have Republican votes, they can’t try reverse finger pointing.
I hope they stand firm. New Democrat senators from usually conservative districts may want to think twice before voting for this. You may have a six-year term, but we have the “memory of an elephant.”
But Appropriations Committee ranking member Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said that while he agrees on the urgent need to address the slump, the panel is being asked "to take a leap of faith that this massive amount of spending will stimulate a suffering economy, despite evidence that much of the funding will not be spent in the next year or two."
Cochran's comments came on the heels of new Congressional Budget Office report noting that about 65 percent of the bill's overall funding would be spent within the first 18 months of enactment. That is below President Obama's goal of spending 75 percent in 18 months. A previous CBO report on the discretionary spending in the House version indicated that less than half would be spent by the end of fiscal 2010.
Cochran recommended that some stimulus spending be handled in the regular annual appropriations bills, which would allow the stimulus bill to focus spending on short-term job creation. Cochran voted for the package, but he said he did so only out of deference to Inouye. He added he reserved the right to oppose the measure on the Senate floor after he examines the measure in full, with the tax component.