US stimulus plan clears Senate hurdle

The news comes after a fired-up President Barack Obama demanded Congress pass his huge economic stimulus plan ‘immediately’ and warned delay and paralysis in Washington would bring only ‘deepening disaster.’

"We've had a good debate -- now it's time to act, that's why I am calling on Congress to pass this bill immediately," Obama said in Elkhart, a city where unemployment rocketed from 4.4 percent to 15.3 percent in a single year.

Final vote nears

Senators voted 61-36 on a motion to close debate, and were to vote Tuesday on the overall package, which Obama has called crucial to pulling the battered US economy out of a paralysing recession.

Senate passage would set up talks with the House of Representatives, which has approved a $819-billion version of the bill, to craft a compromise version that both chambers would then vote on.

Obama and leading Democrats have said they want to see the legislation completed before lawmakers leave for a week-long recess anchored on the February 16 President's Day holiday.

The president's legislative victory Monday was tempered by the relative lack of support from Republicans, a handful of whom voted for the Senate bill and not one of whom said yes to the House version last week.

The two versions differ not merely on a dollar amount but on spending and tax cut priorities, which could make for arduous negotiations in the House-Senate "conference" amid dire warnings about the cost of inaction.

"The millions of Americans who are out of work, struggling to keep their homes and make one pay check last until the next one comes, deserve to hear five words from Congress: Help is on the way," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Obama on tour

The president placed pressure on the Senate from outside Washington hitting a populist note reminiscent of his two-year quest for the presidency.

"I can't tell you with one hundred percent certainty that every single item in this plan will work exactly as we hope," he said, after being welcomed to a town hall event in a high school here with chants of "Obama, Obama."

"I can tell you with complete confidence that endless delay or paralysis in Washington in the face of this crisis will bring only deepening disaster.

"I can tell you that doing nothing is not an option."

After his prime-time press conference in the East Room of the White House, the president will make another barnstorming trip on Tuesday, to a hard-hit corner of Florida.

His staff announced he would also add a stop in Peoria, Illinois on Thursday, the home of earthmoving manufacturing firm Caterpillar, which recently laid off 22,000 workers.
His press secretary Robert Gibbs fleshed out Monday's strategy.

"This is not explaining to Indiana what's going on in Washington -- this is taking Washington to show them what's going on in Indiana and all over the country -- and why people are hurting," he said.

Obama's political advisor David Axelrod attempted to position the president as a spokesman for the troubles of everyday Americans angry at delays in passing the stimulus bill in Washington.

"One thing that we learned over two years... is that there's a whole different conversation in Washington than there is out here," Axelrod said aboard Air Force One.

Debate preceding decision

The $827 billion Senate bill will have to be reconciled with an $820 billion version passed already by the Democratic-led House of Representatives, which devoted more to infrastructure and less to tax cuts.

Despite the outlines of a compromise brokered with the help of the centrist Republicans, senior opposition senators were adamant that Obama's mix of infrastructure spending and tax cuts would prove a massive waste of money.

Administration officials said Sunday that just such a program to revive the stricken banking industry and housing market would be presented Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.