Senate moderates worked to cut tens of billions of dollars from the economic stimulus bill in hopes of clearing the way for passage Thursday as the US government spit out grim new jobless figures and President Barack Obama warned of more bad news to come. “The time for talk is over. The time for action is now,” said Obama. He implored lawmakers in both parties to “rise to this moment” and send him legislation to begin fixing the worst economic crisis in decades. Obama added he would “love to see additional improvements” in the bill, a gesture to the moderates from both parties at work on trying to trim the $920 billion price tag. But with the Senate plodding through a fourth day of debate, earlier talk of a large, bipartisan vote for the legislation was fading. “As I have explained to people in that group, they cannot hold the president of the United States hostage,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat. “If they think they're going to rewrite this bill and Barack Obama is going to walk away from what he is trying to do for the American people, they've got another thought coming.” Republicans countered that neither the president nor Democratic congressional leaders have been willing to seek common ground on the first major bill of the new administration. In an interview, Senator John McCain said Obama “gave the Democrats the leeway to basically shut out Republicans starting with the House and now here in the Senate, and I don't think that's good.” McCain's penchant for working across party lines has irritated fellow Republicans in the past, but he was not taking part in bipartisan talks on trimming the stimulus bill. Nearly 20 senators from both parties met twice during the day and reviewed a list of possible cuts totaling nearly $80 billion. They included elimination of at least $40 billion in aid to the states, which have budget crises of their own, as well as $1.4 billion ticketed for the National Science Foundation. There was no sign the group of self-appointed compromisers had agreed to support the reductions, but even if they had the numbers were far short of what some were looking for. “The president made a strong case for a proposal that would be in the neighborhood of $800 billion,” McCain said. Critics contend the bill is bloated with spending for items that will not create jobs, such as smoking prevention programs or efforts to combat a future pandemic flu outbreak. And while polls show Obama is popular and the public supports recovery legislation, Republicans have maneuvered in the past several days to identify and ridicule relatively small items in the bill. Whatever the public relations battle, Republicans have tried without success so far to reduce spending in the measure and were ready with additional attempts during the day. The legislation is a key early test for Obama, who has been in office just two weeks and has made economic recovery his top priority.
