Pelosi Rips Republicans For Not Supporting Jobs Package
News outlets focus on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
"Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped Senate Republicans on Thursday for refusing to support a jobs and tax package that has been stalled in the upper chamber for weeks," asking "What did middle-class families ever do to Republicans in the Senate that they would snuff out every opportunity for job creation that has been sent to them?" Politico reports, Her "comments are only the latest sign of tension between the House and the Senate over the Democrats' stalled economic agenda. Senate leaders have only 59 votes in support of the jobs bill, which would extend tax provisions and small-business lending programs and stave off cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. Another critical vote in the Senate should come Thursday evening, but Democrats still don't appear to have the votes.
The Hill: "Pelosi's frustration has been on the rise lately. She was forced to scale back a package of unemployment insurance extensions, aid to states and extended COBRA health insurance benefits in part because her vulnerable members did not want to vote to add to the deficit without an assurance that the Senate would follow suit Pelosi said the House "might" take up the doc-fix bill before finishing its work for the week on Thursday evening. The House on Thursday did pass legislation to temporarily reverse a steep pay cut for Medicare doctors that took hold this month" (Allen, 6/24).
In a second article, The Hill reports that "Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), whom Democrats had been aggressively courting as a key vote to get the tax extenders passed said she'd vote no on the bill Snowe expressed her frustration she'd had a small business tax relief package since March and has been repeatedly promised action was forthcoming. And she said the Medicare payroll tax in the healthcare reform law should have been used to give physicians a payment update for 10 years or more" (Pecquet, 6/24).
