WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats on Thursday abandoned efforts to provide fresh aid to cash-strapped state governments and extend emergency unemployment benefits for millions of jobless workers, leaving in limbo President Barack Obama’s push for more spending to bolster the economy.
The decision came after the Senate failed again to muster 60 votes to advance a package of tax cuts and emergency economic provisions. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., joined a united Republican caucus in voting to block the measure, citing concern that even the latest slimmed-down version would expand bloated budget deficits. The package fell short, 57-41. Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas voted to advance the legislation.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., blamed Republican intransigence for killing the measure and dismissed talk of continuing negotiations, saying the only path forward would require Republican compromise.
“We’ve tried and tried. This is our eighth week on this legislation,” Reid said, urging reporters to direct questions about the measure’s fate to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “We are here. We’re willing to work.”
McConnell, meanwhile, blamed Democrats for the impasse and for refusing to support a Republican alternative that would have paid for new spending with cuts elsewhere, reducing future deficits.
“The principle they’re defending here is not some program,” McConnell said. “The principle Democrats are defending is that they will not pass a bill unless it adds to the debt.”
Other senior Democrats said they are likely to try again to attract GOP support for the measure, which Obama has called critical to avoiding the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of state workers and propping up the nation’s still-fragile economic recovery. But after four months of talks, senior Democrats said they are likely to delay further action until after the July Fourth recess.
Democrats had tried to win support from moderate Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts. They voted in March to defeat a filibuster.
“The debt is out of control,” Brown said. “Since I did that last time, the debt’s at over $13 trillion and rising.”
Emergency jobless benefits, which provide up to 99 weeks of income support, expired June 2. Since then, more than 1.2 million people have had their checks cut off, according to estimates by the Labor Department. That number is expected to rise to more than 2 million people by the time Congress returns from its week-long break. Unless Congress acts, the program would phase out entirely by the end of October.
The legislation would have increased budget deficits by $33 billion over the next decade - the cost of extending jobless benefits through the end of November. Obama’s request for $24 billion in state aid was scaled back to $16 billion, and its cost would have been covered by unspent funds from last year’s economic stimulus package, much of it targeted at the food stamps program.
Other provisions would have been fully paid for, including plans to extend an array of expiring tax breaks that are hugely popular with many of the nation’s largest business groups. Among the revenue-raising provisions in the measure are new taxes on investment fund managers and multinational corporations that do business overseas.
Late Thursday, the House voted 417-1 to send to the president a measure that would postpone a 21 percent pay cut for doctors who see Medicare patients. The $6 billion measure would delay the cut until the end of this year.
Arkansas’ full House delegation - three Democrats and one Republican - supported the initiative. Just one Democrat, Rep. George Miller of California, was in opposition.
Information for this article was contributed by Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane of The Washington Post; by Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press and by David M. Herszenhorn of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 06/25/2010