Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters today “Democrats would win at least 60 votes” during the debate over an economic stimulus package (S.1). He also struck a much different, more accommodating tone, then Democratic leaders did yesterday after some Republican members threatened to hold up progress on the bill.
“I don’t think it’s touch-and-go whether we’ll get to 60,” Schumer said. “I think we’ll get to 60.”
Schumer listed off a series of GOP-favored amendments Democrats were willing to accommodate in the final bill, including greater spending on infrastructure and investment – and argued that the flexibility would help win GOP votes.
“This shows this is an open process with lots of room for compromise,” Schumer said. “Here in the Senate, I think we have a chance to be different than the House.”
Senate Republicans, as I noted on Twitter this morning, are working on an alternative proposal which will likely have more focus on tax breaks among other things. Meanwhile, as noted in another “tweet,” Fox News reported that Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) was interested in working on a compromise stimulus proposal.
I’m wondering if there is some potential here for a sort of compromise “gang” to get together and offer a bipartisan stimulus package next week. Fueling that fire, possibly, is an entry by Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) on her Twitter account which stated that she would be spending the weekend working with Senator Nelson on “getting some of the spending out” of the package.
Democratic leaders would obviously work hard to discourage any compromise proposals as they may only need a few Republican votes to push this current package through, which President Obama helped craft. But if the debate gets nasty next week and things appear to be slowing down, there are a few clues that indicate there is some potential for a compromise.
Update: Just stumbled upon a Fox News article discussing the possibility of a compromise proposal.
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