WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans and Democrats agreed Thursday to add rebates for 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans to a House-passed economic aid package, ending a partisan stalemate over the plan.

The key breakthrough came when Democrats, under pressure from party colleagues in the House, agreed to drop their insistence on adding jobless benefits, heating aid for the poor and business subsidies, and said they would allow a vote on a plan that merely extends the tax rebates to Social Security retirees and disabled veterans.

The turnaround came after Democrats on Wednesday fell just one vote short of pressing their larger, $205 billion plan past a GOP filibuster.

Democrats huddled Thursday and opted not to continue the battle and instead speed the bipartisan measure to President Bush.

The retreat came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi split with Reid to side with Republicans, including McConnell, and called on the Senate to stop its infighting and pass the bill.

i love it.

even better than saving it, uncashed, and sending it back next april…

Comment by JustPlainTired — February 6, 2008 @ 11:03 pm

I’m pretty sure I actually caught 2 different trolls working off of scripts here last fall.

One of the resident trolls used the line “The Dems are playing w/ you the way we play w/ our religious nuts…” one day. That is an EXACT quote. (I have an unusually good memory for word combinations…)

Then, about 6 weeks later, ANOTHER troll uses the SAME, EXACT line…

So, tell me, what are the odds of 2 different trolls using the EXTACT same line, 6 weeks apart? Mere coincidence?

Kinda creepy, when you think about it.

The Righties know they’re getting their a**e* handed to them online. I guess they’re fighting back however they can… if USA_Pat is one of theirs, they’re in worse trouble than they realize.

Comment by ucsbclassics53 — February 6, 2008 @ 10:41 pm

There has got to be a class or a handbook. You can go to any blog message board and see the same things word for word. It reminds me of when the President used the word embolden. I saw people that had a hard time putting a good thought together, use it in a sentence. From his mouth to their ears.

This is part of the reason we need a stimulus package.
$9,000,000,000 just dissapears and no one asked what happened? 200,000 pieces of equiptment, gone. I’m amazed at the level of incompetance. I’m also amazed that they are getting away with it.

I’ll teach them. When we get our $1200, I’m putting it in my mattress.

Comment by tombaker — February 6, 2008 @ 9:31 pm

Why don’t people understand this? 3 short months ago there was talk of the great economy. 2 short months ago there was talk of a great economy. So what happened? What changed in the last couple months?

yes, I know, ignore them, it’s easier said than done…

(Flagging myself to send the compliment)

Comment by USA_Patriot — February 6, 2008 @ 9:11 pm

I know there’s no point in arguing w/ this idiot, but the above comment needs to be rebutted, and is so quite easily.

http://dkosopedia.com/wiki/Data_on_National_Debt_by_President

Notice that fifty years ago, the debt was huge: that’s because WWII was very expensive. Afterward, both parties wisely cooperated to pay down the huge war debt. Ford was the first president to break with that tradition. From that point forward, every Republican worked hard to push us deeper into debt, every Democrat worked hard to get us out of debt.

http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm

The increase in total debt during Reagan’s two terms was larger than all the debt accumulated by all the presidents before him combined. From 1983 through 1985, with a Republican Senate, the debt was increasing at over 17% per year. While Mr. Reagan was in office this nation’s debt went from just under 1 trillion dollars to over 2.6 trillion dollars, a 200% increase.

George Bush Sr. meekly followed in Reagan’s shadow after his election in 1988, by increasing the debt on average a mere 11.8% a year during his four years as President.

The first year Mr. Bush II was in office he had to borrow 133 billion[8]. The first tax cut Bush pushed through a willing Republican Congress caused an upswing in government borrowing that was supposed to stimulate the economy, but two years later Bush had to push through yet another tax cut. The second tax cut was needed because it was clear that the first one did not work. Economic history tells us the second did not work either. As a result of all his tax cutting with no cutting in spending, in 2003 President Bush set a record for the biggest single yearly dollar increase in debt in the nation’s history. He did it again in 2004, increasing the debt more than half a trillion dollars. Since 2003 total borrowing has exceeded $500,000,000,000 per year. Even Mr. Reagan never increased the debt that much in a single year; Mr. Reagan’s biggest increase was only 282 billion, half of GWB’s outrageous spending. As a result of the fact that the debt was already pretty high when Bush II entered office, his annual rate of increase is only averaging 7% per year so far. In 2006 he was holding press conferences bragging that the debt was increasing at the rate of only 300 billion dollars a year, yet in reality it was twice that. Again the facts do not match Neo-Con rhetoric.

Of course 7% growth is a misleading figure as it does not make clear that by so drastically increasing the total debt, the amount of the annual US budget dedicated to service the debt has grown to over 20%. Thanks to misguided Neo-Con ideological thinking, over a fifth of our budget does nothing to contribute to the growth or health of the nation.

Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II ALONE have cumulatively increased the national debt by over 6 TRILLION DOLLARS.

Cockroaches try to get into the house any way they can!

What the hell is wrong with including this in the stimulus package?!

republicans are GODDAMNED SCUMBAGS.