WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s revised jobs plan failed on a 50-50 test vote that fell short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster. Three Democrats, including Arkansas' Mark Pryor, abandoned Obama on the vote and two more who voted with the president said they couldn’t support the underlying plan unless it’s changed.
But the president and his allies in the Senate promise to press ahead with separate votes on pieces of his failed $447 billion jobs measure despite unanimous opposition from Republicans.
Future votes on individual pieces of the measure, however, aren’t likely to fare better than a pared-back jobs measure designed to boost hiring of teachers and first responders that Republicans and a handful of Democrats scuttled on Thursday.
Thursday’s $35 billion measure combined $30 billion for state and local governments to hire teachers and other school workers with $5 billion to help pay the salaries of police officers, firefighters and other first responders. The White House says the measure would “support” almost 400,000 education jobs for one year. Republicans call that a temporary “sugar high” for the economy and say it’s a taxpayer-funded bailout of state and local governments.
Democrats Pryor, Ben Nelson of Nebraska Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut broke with Obama on Thursday’s vote. Two Democrats who voted with the president, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, said they couldn’t support the underlying Obama plan unless it’s changed.
Immediately after the vote on Obama’s plan, Democrats turned the tables and filibustered Republican-backed legislation that would prevent the government from withholding 3 percent of payments to government contractors. The legislation failed to get the 60 votes needed to end the filibuster on a 57-43 vote, even though 10 Democrats voted to advance it.
Many Democrats and Obama support the idea but opposed it Thursday because it would be paid for with $30 billion in cuts from domestic agency spending. Advocates of repealing the withholding requirement say it will help create jobs, especially from contractors on large projects with smaller profit margins.
After voting on the competing jobs measures, the Senate worked past midnight on a $128 billion spending bill covering five Cabinet departments.
Early Friday, the Senate voted 84-15 to end direct payments to farmers whose annual incomes exceed $1 million.