Senate Democrats Emerge Victorious in Stimulus Battle

Today, the United States Senate passed a measure to take the next step in providing economic recovery to Americans, and put a stop to the downturn.

The Senate passed the stimulus bill 61-37, one more vote than needed to move the bill into a conference committee to resolve the differences between the House ($819 billion) and Senate ($838 billion) versions. The House, which passed the bill through its chamber without a single Republican vote, had provided more money for education and funding to go directly to the states. Senate Republicans felt that the stimulus was too large, and called it "littered with pork." President Obama, in his first prime time network press conference last night, insisted that there is not a single earmark in the bill, and such programs as "greening government buildings" was unfairly being branded as "wasteful spending."

With a majority in the Senate, but shy of the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster by the opposing party, the Democrats were forced to make concessions on some programs which they deemed mandatory in order to coerce moderate Republicans to join the Democrats in passing the bill. After much deliberation, they reached a solution by trimming billions from the plan. The three Republicans who crossed the aisle were Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. With their support, the measure passed with one more vote than needed, and will now go into conference. With only three Republicans voting in favor, can it really be called a "bipartisan effort"? On paper, yes. In reality, no.

It is a unique situation, considering that only four to six years ago, the Republicans had commanding control of both chambers of Congress, and worked to stifle any efforts the Democrats made to have a dissenting opinion that would affect their legislative agenda. Now, with the situation reversed, the Republicans face a tough challenge in stalling any efforts the Democrats make in pushing through their chosen legislation. Speculation reigned for quite some time on how the balance of power would play in Congress, and this particular situation gives quite a good answer: the Republicans in Congress do not have the power they once had, and their ability to stop Democrats is minimal, if not closer to none.