Yesterday, Senate Finance Committee members Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released what they were calling a jobs bill, an $85 billion piece of legislation composed of tax incentives for businesses to hire as well as a handful of extenders to expiring tax provisions (that had nothing to do with job creation). Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) had been working on a jobs package, but as Ezra Klein put it, “the Finance Committee wants control of the process, so it’s trying to muscle its way in front of them.”

The Baucus/Grassley bill was roundly panned by the rest of the Democratic caucus. “It looks more like a tax bill than a jobs bill to me,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). So Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) scrapped it in favor of a $15 billion bill with four pieces: a payroll tax break, and one-year extension of highway funding, an extension of the Build America bond program, and a business tax break for equipment expensing.

Republicans, who were keen on many of the tax provisions in the Baucus/Grassley bill, immediately cried foul, complaining that Reid was undermining economic recovery with his actions. Grassley spokeswoman Jill Kozeny said that Reid “pulled the rug out from work to build broad-based support for tax relief and other efforts to help the private sector recover from the economic crisis.”

But it’s funny that the GOP suddenly feels that the legislation is must-pass to boost an economic recovery considering that earlier in the week they said that it wouldn’t create a single job:

Kyl, a member of Finance, said he most definitely “would not call it a ‘jobs bill’,” though…“No, I dont call that a jobs bill,” Kyl said emphatically…”All of that has to be done, but it does not create one job.”

And even though they readily admitted that the bill was full of stuff “that has to be done,” Republicans were placing all sorts of conditions on their support, including unanimous consent to vote on a huge cut in the estate tax that would give billions in tax breaks to the heirs of wealthy families.

So Reid was wise to pitch the Baucus/Grassley bill overboard and to say that he’d revisit the tax extenders later. Even before it came out, economic analysts and members of the administration were saying that it would “only work on the margins” in terms of boosting employment. The New York Times’ editorial board noted that “it was not even in the same league as the modest House-passed $154 billion jobs bill.” There was no reason to allow the GOP to wring out concessions in order to pass a bill that wouldn’t have done anything.

Which isn’t to say that Reid’s $15 billion effort will do all that much either. With the administration’s Council of Economic Advisers estimating that unemployment is still going to be above eight percent in 2012, a much more concerted effort is necessary, including aid to states and some sort of direct job creation.

Cross-posted on the Wonk Room.

In an uncharacteristically impassioned and frank speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) challenged “courageous” Republicans to “break from their leadership” and “work together to pass health care reform.” Baucus argued that the Republican party was more interested in winning seats during the 2010 election than offering sensible alternatives to the health care crisis. He also accused the Republican leadership of pressuring members of ‘Gang of Six’ to abandon bipartisan negotiations.

Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) “wanted to pass health care reform,” Baucus insisted. “They asked very good questions,” but “one by one by one they started to drift away. They wanted to pass health care reform, they wanted to act in a bipartisan basis but they were pressured, pressured from their political party not to do it.”

At one point, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) tried to argue that so-called “Gang of Six” members wanted to support a compromise, but “it dawned on them that my friends on the outer side of the aisle wanted to Europeanize the health care system of the United States of America.” Baucus responded angrily. “I want to tell this Senator that is not what happened,” he shouted, waiving his index finger at Wicker:

BAUCUS: I want to tell the Senator that that is not what happened. I was in the room constantly, constantly. I talked to those Senators many many times. That is not what happened. I”ll tell you what did happen. Your leadership pressured them, pressured them, pressured them not to work together. There is no European style effort in that room, that is a totally untruthful statement. Totally untruthful statement. None whatsoever….That assertion of working towards a European solution is entirely untrue. It’s entirely false.

Watch it:

“I just want the public to know that we worked very hard to get a bipartisan bill that side of the aisle started working with us but gradually they began to bleed politically,” Baucus said. They realized “that they would do a better chance in the 2010 elections by just not working with us, but just attack attack attack attack attack and try to score political points to defeat any honest effort to get health care reform.”

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

Extensive coverage has been devoted to the fact that Lindsey Graham’s split on global warming and other issues highlights a rift in the Republican Party. While that’s true, another more important development has not been pursued: Graham’s departure from right-wing orthodoxy highlights the potential for conservative Democrats to follow in his footsteps.

Many conservative Democrats have questioned President Obama’s clean energy agenda. Now, a Republican is breaking with his party to talk sense. In a press conference yesterday with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the author of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Graham rebuked senators unwilling to address carbon pollution. Saying that he has “seen the effects of a warming planet,” Graham called for the United States to “lead the world rather than follow the world on carbon pollution”:

The green economy is coming. We can either follow or lead. And those countries who follow will pay a price. Those nations who lead in creating the new green economy for the world will make money.

Watch it:

Graham sounded more like Van Jones — the author of “The Green Collar Economy” who was branded by Glenn Beck as a “communist” — than many of his Democratic colleagues:

Max Baucus (D-MT): Montana, with our resource-based agriculture and tourism economies, cannot afford the unmitigated impacts of climate change. But we also cannot afford the unmitigated effects of climate change legislation.

Evan Bayh (D-IN): Jobs should be our top priority and we shouldn’t do anything that detracts from that.

Robert Byrd (D-WV): I will actively oppose any bill that would harm the workers, families, industries, or our resource-based economy in West Virginia.

Byron Dorgan (D-ND): I just don’t think climate change is going to be on the floor this year. Trying to restart our economic engine and trying to get this country back to work — to me that is the most important issue.

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): I am opposed to the House passed cap-and-trade legislation, which in my view, picks winners and losers and places a disproportionate share of the economic burden on families and businesses in Arkansas.

Claire McCaskill (D-MO): I hope we can fix cap and trade so it doesn’t unfairly punish businesses and families in coal dependent states like Missouri.

Ben Nelson (D-NE): I think at the end of the day, the people who turn the switch on at home are going to be disadvantaged.

Jim Webb (D-VA): We can’t just start with things like emission standards at a time when we’re at a crisis with the entire national energy policy.

Do these Democrats agree with Lindsey Graham that our planet “is in peril“? Do they agree with Graham that “limiting carbon pollution is good for business”? Will conservative Democrats follow Sen. Graham’s embrace of the “new green economy” — and shouldn’t they be asked if they will?

The Congressional Budget Office reports that the Senate Finance Committee’s health reform bill would cost approximately $829 billion over 10 years, well below President Obama’s target of $900 billion. The bill, sponsored by Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), will not expand the deficit; instead, it is projected to reduce it by $81 billion over the next decade. “Health reform should be fiscally responsible as it expands and improves coverage and these numbers reiterate that real reform can be just that,” Baucus said in a statement. The Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky has produced a helpful chart breaking down the costs of the Baucus bill before and after it was amended:

	Old CBO Score Of Baucus Bill	New CBO Score Of Baucus Bill
Costs	Reduce deficits: $49B/10yrs Net Cost: $500B/10yrs Gross cost: $774B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $463B/10yrs	Reduce deficits: $81B/10yrs Net Cost: $518B/10yrs Gross cost: $829B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $461B/10yrs
Insured	Uninsured reduced by: 29M Uninsured in 2019: 25M In Exchanges: 25M In Medicaid: 11M	Uninsured reduced by: 29M Uninsured in 2019: 25M In Exchanges: 23M In Medicaid: 14M
Revenue	Tax high cost plans: $215B/10yrs Mandate penalty: $20B/10yrs Free rider penalty: $27B/10yrs Indirect offsets: $12B/10yrs	Tax high cost plans: $201B/10yrs Mandate penalty: $4B/10yrs Free rider penalty: $23B/10yrs Indirect offsets: $83B/10yrs
Medicare and Medicaid	Total savings: 409B/10yrs Payment updates: $182B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $123B/10yrs DISH Payments: $48B/10yrs Medicare Commission: $23B/10yrs	Total savings: 404B/10yrs Payment updates: $162B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $117B/10yrs DISH Payments: $45B/10yrs Medicare Commission: $22B/10yrs

Despite the fact that the Baucus bill addresses the conservative criticism of limiting government spending, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) reacted on Fox News by dismissing the CBO analysis. “If I were the President, I would basically start over,” Graham told Neil Cavuto.