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Republicans vow trouble for Obama stimulus plan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-02 10:43 WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama's gargantuan attempt to revive the recession-hit US economy risks running into a wall of opposition in the Senate this week, top Republicans warned Sunday.
"In the Senate, it routinely takes 60 votes to do almost everything. It doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to slow a bill down," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on CBS program "Face the Nation." "But a super-majority is required for virtually everything in the Senate, and certainly for something that is close to a one-trillion-dollar spending bill, it will," he said. To overcome a Republican "filibuster," the Democrats would need to amass 60 votes to shut down debate and bring the bill to a vote. Obama's party can now count on 58 votes to the Republicans' 41, with one seat still unresolved. Republicans, accusing the Democratic majority in Congress of shutting them out of debate, have resisted a charm offensive from the new US president as he battles to enact the most pressing legislative item of his fledgling term. Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives approved the huge stimulus without a single Republican vote. Negotiations were carrying on through the weekend, as Obama invited a bipartisan group of lawmakers to the White House to watch the American football Super Bowl Sunday night.
"I think the more people around the country see of it, the angrier they get, because it's very wasteful. It spends way too much money," the Arizonan said on "Fox News Sunday." "And so I see support in the Senate actually eroding." A key Republican demand is to refocus the stimulus package away from a spending spree on infrastructure and social safety nets, and toward attacking the root cause of the financial crisis: the US property market slump. The Republicans will introduce a plan to enable homeowners to refinance their mortgages at a low interest rate of about four percent, Senator John Ensign said. "If you combine that with properly targeted tax cuts, we can really get this economy going instead of doing a massive spending bill that just fulfills the last 10 years of Democrat priorities," the Nevada Republican said. Obama said Saturday that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would soon announce measures to free up credit for businesses and homeowners -- but has stressed that such measures will come in a separate bailout for the banking industry. In his weekly radio address, the US president urged the Senate to quickly tackle the "unprecedented economic turmoil" and vowed to continue working with both parties. "With the stakes so high we simply cannot afford the same old gridlock and partisan posturing in Washington," he said. Obama's remarks came after Friday's release of dire figures showing that the US economy shrank by nearly four percent in the last quarter of 2008, its sharpest decline since 1982. Democratic senators, while reinforcing the message that speed is of the essence, said they were open to Republican ideas. On "Face the Nation," New York Senator Charles Schumer said he was confident of winning over enough opposition support. "But I will say this. I'd rather have a really good bill that helps our economy get out of this mess, with 65 votes, than dilute the bill and get 80 votes," he said. Opposition threats of a filibuster risk being undermined by Obama's expected nomination Monday of Republican Senator Judd Gregg to serve as his commerce secretary. But McConnell, without going into details, said he had assurances that whoever replaces Gregg would vote with the Republicans, "so I think it would have no impact on the balance of power in the Senate." |
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