Democratic Senate leaders said they still hoped to secure changes to the House plan when they voted on it next week. They said they remained on track to get the plan, a portfolio of tax rebates and business tax breaks intended to jolt the economy, to President Bush for his signature by Feb. 15.
The Democrats also said that the efforts over the last two days to shape the stimulus package to reflect their economic priorities had allowed them to lay out an agenda that they would pursue in the months ahead and use to bolster the case for electing a Democrat as president and widening their majorities in Congress.
Top items on that agenda include increased benefits for the elderly and veterans; subsidies for low-income families struggling with home heating bills and other energy costs; mortgage counseling for distressed homeowners; extended unemployment benefits; increased food stamps; and tax credits for alternative energy sources.
The inability to reach a compromise in the Senate was in marked contrast to the negotiations a week ago between the Bush administration and House Democrats, which produced a swift agreement amid a remarkable show of bipartisan cooperation.
“I can give you their own speech on unemployment compensation, on food stamps,” the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said of his numerous conversations with the administration. “They don’t believe in them, O.K.? So there was no way to agree when they don’t believe that food stamps are important, when they believe that if you extend unemployment benefits it only keeps people from looking for a job, which is a little hard to comprehend. So the answer is, we tried to work something out with them and we weren’t able to do that.”
Republicans pointed to their deal with Speaker Nancy Pelosi as evidence that Senate Democrats were the obstacle, and they accused the Democrats of playing politics.
“They’ve already conceded they are trying to make a point, not a law,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.
The chief changes that Senate Democrats still hope to make to the House stimulus plan would make tax filers living only on Social Security or veterans benefits eligible for $300 payments and would expand the home-heating subsidies.
Lee ADDS: Leave it to Harry ‘Hands Up’ Reid to foul up things. In his usual inept fashion he has done the bidding of MoveOn, Soros and the Liberal bunch!
