WASHINGTON — The demise of Democrats’ jobs agenda legislation means that unemployment benefits will phase out for more than 200,000 people a week. Governors who had counted on fresh federal aid will now have to consider more budget cuts, tax increases and layoffs of state workers.
Democratic officials said the House may try to revive the long-stalled jobless-aid bill next week as a standalone bill shorn of contentious tax and spending provisions that prompted Senate Republicans to filibuster it Thursday.
But the Senate may not have enough time to clear the measure for President Barack Obama’s desk before leaving Washington for the Fourth of July recess. The impasse has meant that more than 1.2 million people have lost unemployment benefits averaging $300 a week.
The aides required anonymity to speak freely about internal party strategy.
Senate Democrats cut billions from the bill in an attempt to attract enough Republican votes to overcome a filibuster. But the 57-41 vote Thursday fell three votes short of the 60 required to crack a GOP filibuster.
“Democrats have given Republicans every chance to say ‘yes’ to this bill and support economic recovery for our middle class,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “But they made a choice to say ‘no’ yet again.”
Obama will keep pressing Congress to pass the bill, his spokesman said. But Democrats haven’t shown they can come up with the votes.
That’s leading Democrats to consider breaking the jobless-aid measure from the catchall bill and try to pass it as a stand-alone $33 billion measure next week before leaving Washington for a week-long Independence Day recess. Key Senate Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, are pressing the idea.
But a Reid spokesman said the majority leader is committed to passing a Wall Street overhaul bill next week and predicted Republicans would block any move to do a stand alone jobless aid bill after that measure passes.
The stand-alone approach proved to be the way forward for a measure to temporarily spare doctors from a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments, which Obama signed Friday.
The Medicare funding had been a part of the larger bill to provide extended unemployment benefits for laid-off workers and provide states with billions of dollars to avert layoffs.
When it became clear Senate Republicans would block the larger bill, Democrats voted for the smaller Medicare fix.
Congressional Democrats began the year with an aggressive agenda of passing a series of bills designed to create jobs. One has become law, offering tax breaks to companies that hire unemployed workers. Others stalled as lawmakers, after hearing from angry voters, became wary of adding to the national debt, which stands at $13 trillion.
Republicans said the bill would have expanded government, not boosted the economy.
“The only thing Republicans have opposed in this debate are job-killing taxes and adding to the national debt,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “What we’re not willing to do is use worthwhile programs as an excuse to burden our children and our grandchildren with an even bigger national debt than we’ve already got.”
On Friday, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said Senate Republicans could be prolonging the recession by opposing the bill that would have extended unemployment benefits.
Solis, talking to a group of Hispanic government officials in Denver, warned of dire consequences if benefits are shut off.
Bill Riggs, a spokesman with the Republican National Committee, said it was Democrats’ fault the bill didn’t pass and that they rejected “fiscally responsible alternatives” from the GOP to extend unemployment benefits.
Information for this article was contributed by Ivan Moreno of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 06/26/2010