Author: Chris Good

The $15 billion jobs bill the Senate passed Wednesday, which exempted businesses from payroll taxes and included some highway funding, was designed as the first in a string of bills designed to address the nation’s unemployment rate.

Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning to introduce a second bill that will include an extension of unemployment insurance benefits, state Medicaid funding, a slew of extensions of tax credits and expiring programs, an extension of COBRA, Medicare physician payment update, and small business loan guarantee enhancements, according to copies of the bill obtained by The Atlantic.

Reid’s office has not confirmed the bill’s contents.

The second bill, which is more ambitious and will likely cost more than
the first, also includes a one-year extension of PATRIOT Act provisions
and satellite TV licensing, plus an extension of disaster relief
funding.
The majority leader had previously voiced support
for passing state Medicaid funding and extending unemployment
insurance, in a speech on the Senate floor. The new jobs bill extends
an increase in state Medicaid funding originated under the $787 billion
stimulus package.

Reid will likely introduce the bill as early
as next week, though no time frame has been confirmed with Reid’s
office. See a copy of the bill in .pdf format here: Jobs bill.pdf

The
majority leader has said he plans to roll out jobs legislation as a
string of bills, the first of which was passed by a 70-28 margin on
Wednesday. That $15 billion package, introduced by Reid, included
highway funds, small business tax write-offs, and an exemption on
Social Security payroll taxes for businesses who hire new workers.

The
new bill includes most of the remaining provisions from the bill rolled
out by Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman
and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, on Feb. 11 (list of
provisions here).

Hours
after Baucus and Grassley unveiled their bipartisan $85 billion bill,
Reid pared it down to $15 billion, stripping most of its provisions
except the items above.

The
new bill contains certain offsets, including an exclusion of some types
of cellulosic ethanol from tax credits and modifications to the
homebuyer tax credit; it exempts much of its contents from the Senate’s
statutory pay-as-you-go rules (commonly known as pay-go, which the
Senate reinstituted Jan. 28) as emergency spending.

It does not yet have a score to determine how much it will cost.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s $15 billion jobs bill passed though the Senate Wednesday by a comfortable 70-28 margin, collecting support from 13 Republicans. But just two days earlier, the bill passed a procedural hurdle by a much slimmer margin, as only five Republicans joined with Democrats to advance the bill.

So why did 13 Republicans support the bill on Wednesday, while only five supported it on Monday?

The answer has to do partly with Senate procedure, partly with how it was handled by Reid, and partly with the bill itself.

Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had unveiled a bipartisan bill on Feb. 11 with an $85 billion pricetag, with Grassley bringing support from within the Republican caucus to back it; hours later, Reid stripped the bill down to $15 billion, reducing it to several key elements.

So Republicans already supported those elements–they just wanted the original, bipartisan bill–and when Reid wanted a vote on his package without amendments, Republicans weren’t happy about it.

Hence, they voted “no” Monday on closing debate and advancing to a vote without amendments. Once that bridge was crossed, however, they voted “yes” on the set of proposals they already supported–a payroll tax exemption, small business tax write-offs, an extension of highway programs, and letting states borrow money at lower cost for infrastructure projects. (Reid, meanwhile, has presented this bill as just the first step in a broader jobs agenda–so the door appears to be open for more legislation.)

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was one of the eight Republicans to vote against cloture and for the bill itself.

“Sen. Murkowski was disappointed that the Majority Leader didn’t allow a vote on a bipartisan bill, crafted by Sens. Grassley and Baucus, that would have addressed a number of expiring federal laws tied to job creation,” spokesman Michael Brumas said.

“Additionally, she believes that the bill should’ve been open to amendments. So Sen. Murkowski voted against ending debate on the bill. She did support the elements contained in the pared down bill that the Senate passed today and voted for the legislation.”

It’s not that GOP senators opposed what was in the bill itself on Monday, or the elements of the bipartisan bill, according to a Republican aide: it was how Reid handled the bill, replacing the bipartisan agreement with his own version, after Republicans had agreed to support the Baucus/Grassley bill, and then not allowing amendments.

“The process is what it really was,” the aide said, calling Reid’s move a “bait and switch.”

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), another Republican who voted against cloture on Monday and for the bill on Wednesday, told The Oklahoman the same thing: “It wasn’t opposition to the jobs bill as much as it was to the procedure,” Inhofe said.

So, beneath the bipartisanship that this vote has allegedly brought lies some frustration with Reid and the way the jobs bill was handled–though, in the end, Republicans did vote “yes” on a set of proposals, put to a vote by the Democratic leadership, that they supported.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took the bipartisan-negotiated jobs bill, unveiled by Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA)–who, by the way, played a central role in health care negotiations last summer–and slashed it, the headlines say: he took several measures from that bill and produced them as a new proposal–the first step in a larger Democratic jobs agenda in the Senate, as his office put it.

The bill went from $85 billion to $15 billion, Fox reports.

The new bill includes 1) an exemption from Social Security payroll taxes
for workers hired in 2010 who have been unemployed for at lest 60 days,
2) allowing small businesses to write off more of their expenses under Section
179, 3) an extension of highway programs and a transfer of money to
the Highway Trust Fund, and 4) letting state and local governments
“borrow at lower cost to finance more infrastructure projects.”

Liberals typically like more spending in their jobs proposals–some
wanted the $787 billion stimulus bill (about a third of which was tax
cuts) to spend more, weighing in closer to $900 billion, as was being
discussed before moderate senators struck a deal to pare it down–but
this time around liberals are praising Reid for scrapping so much of the
Baucus/Grassley deal, The
Atlantic Wire’s Healther Horn reports.

But it’s not the bill they’re happy about: it’s Reid’s spine in
rejecting the Baucus/Grassley deal.

After Baucus’s health care negotiations with Grassley and a handful of
Republicans lagged and lagged over the summer, taking much of the
momentum out of health care reform and, in the end, yielding no GOP
votes, it’s hard not to have soured on the idea of a Baucus/Grassley
negotiation leading the way forward for the Democratic/Obama
agenda…even for liberals who think a larger pricetag would do more to
spur job growth.
The new bill includes 1) an exemption from Social Security payroll taxes
for workers hired in 2010 who have been unemployed for at lest 60 days,
2) allowing small businesses to write off more of their expenses under Section
179, 3) an extension of highway programs and a transfer of money to
the Highway Trust Fund, and 4) letting state and local governments
“borrow at lower cost to finance more infrastructure projects.”

Liberals typically like more spending in their jobs proposals–some
wanted the $787 billion stimulus bill (about a third of which was tax
cuts) to spend more, weighing in closer to $900 billion, as was being
discussed before moderate senators struck a deal to pare it down–but
this time around liberals are praising Reid for scrapping so much of the
Baucus/Grassley deal, The
Atlantic Wire’s Healther Horn reports.

But it’s not the bill they’re happy about: it’s Reid’s spine in
rejecting the Baucus/Grassley deal.

After Baucus’s health care negotiations with Grassley and a handful of
Republicans lagged and lagged over the summer, taking much of the
momentum out of health care reform and, in the end, yielding no GOP
votes, it’s hard not to have soured on the idea of a Baucus/Grassley
negotiation leading the way forward for the Democratic/Obama
agenda…even for liberals who think a larger pricetag would do more to
spur job growth.