Post

So much for quick passage of a stimulus package…

I was seriously impressed with how quickly the President and congressional leadership came to an agreement on the framework — if not the content — of an economic stimulus package, and even more impressed when the House stuck to the letter of the deal and approved the package earlier this week. However, you knew it couldn’t last, as the Senate slammed the brakes on the bill by writing its own.

Once the House passed its version of the bill, the Senate Finance Committee, in the persons of Sens. Max Baucus (D, MT) and Charles Grassley (R, IA), chair and ranking member, respectively, pushed back big time. Claiming the Senate would not be “bulldozed” by the House, Baucus and Grassely and committee marked up their own bill, a package which included several other programs and a much bigger price tag than the agreed-to $150 billion.

So, with two senior senators all puffed up and self-righteous, comes a firestorm of criticism from both the House GOP and Senators from both sides of the aisle about slowing the process and making it more expensive. Quickly deflated, the two gentlemen agreed to pare back the Finance Committee bill.

What we’re looking at is a two-step approval process in the Senate which may match the House bill, but likely won’t. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) has agreed that next week the Senate will take up the Finance Committee’s bill in whatever final form it’s taken. If that bill passes, the Senate will send it to the House to conference in hopes of getting it to the President before the February 15 Presidents Day recess deadline.

However, if the Finance Committee package fails, then Reid has agreed to take up the House bill as passed, and begin the process of voting on Senate amendments thereto. That list of amendments will include removing income restrictions on tax rebate recipients, extending federal unemployment insurance by 13 weeks, expanding food stamp eligibility, heat oil assistance, mortgage bonds, and closing loopholes on non-citizens receiving rebates. If no amendment is successful — highly unlikely in an election year — the bill passed is identical to the House bill and off to the President it goes. However, if any of the amendments are accepted, then the package is either conferenced with the House or the House accepts the Senate version, which is highly unlikely.

Any way you cut it, it doesn’t look like Congress will hit the February 15 deadline. And it isn’t because Congress couldn’t make the deadline, but because the Senate apparently doesn’t take the deadline seriously.