Republicans in the US Senate on Tuesday unveiled their cheaper economic stimulus package focused on tax cuts, pushing back against a $885 billion Democratic plan they say encourages too much new spending. As the Democratic-controlled Senate began thrashing out possible changes to the rescue package President Barack Obama has sought, Republicans indicated they may play hardball ahead of a vote that will require at least some Republican support. “The American people are beginning to figure out what this package is, that it's not a stimulus package it's a spending package,” said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election. The package put forward by McCain and others was priced at $445 billion, half the cost of the Democratic version. It centered on cutting in half a 6.2 percent payroll tax on employees, cutting the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent and lowering the bottom two income tax brackets to 10 percent and 5 percent, all for one year. McCain and Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Thune of South Dakota, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Mel Martinez of Florida also proposed $11 billion to prevent home foreclosures and $65 billion in state grants to build and repair bridges and roads. Obama hopes legislation to jump-start the ailing economy will be on his desk for signing into law by mid-February and there appeared to be strong public support for Congress to act. “We have a lot to do in just a little bit of time,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has said Democrats would look at the Republican ideas but want to pass the measure by Friday. According to a new public opinion survey by Gallup, 75 percent of Americans want Congress to pass an economic stimulus bill. The Senate is debating a somewhat different version of a bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last week without any Republican support despite Obama's call for bipartisanship. The bill Obama is pushing for authorization would cost around $819 billion over several years, nearly $70 billion less than the Senate because of different tax components. President Barack Obama blanketed US television, Tuesday, with the message that Congress must approve hundreds of billions of dollars to fight off economic collapse. Daschle drops out Barack Obama's choice to spearhead US healthcare reform stepped down in a flap over personal taxes on Tuesday. Tom Daschle, a former Democratic leader in the Senate and a key Obama adviser who was his pick for health secretary, abruptly withdrew after a storm over late tax payments that had raised questions over Obama's pledge to bring high ethical standards to the White House. Daschle said he did not want to become a “distraction” after errors forced him to pay $140,000 in back taxes. In addition to Daschle, Nancy Killefer, Obama's nominee to become the first US “chief performance officer,” also dropped out because of tax questions. Killefer was the third Obama nominee to have tax problems and said she did not want her problems to create “distraction and delay.” Also Monday, the president predicted some of America's troubled banks still could fail, despite a $700 billion financial bailout program half spent by the Bush administration. Federal regulators now believe US bank failures would cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) more than $40 billion over the next four years through 2013, said FDIC COO John Bovenzi.
