Research

That’s what Senate Democrats hope to use as an excuse after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) pledged that they would move forward today with a motion to proceed on Stimulus II:

Senate Democrats will miss their self-imposed deadline for bringing a jobs bill to the floor Monday, and they’re hoping that the weekend’s epic snowstorm will give them some cover. Senate votes scheduled for Monday evening have been pushed back to Tuesday on account of the storm, but it seems unlikely that Democrats would have been ready to proceed Monday, anyway.

As we pointed out in this morning’s research briefing, it’s the increasing chaos that is preventing Senate Democrats from rushing through another round of wasteful binge spending:

• Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are fighting with Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) over the size and shape of Stimulus II.
• So-called “moderate Dems” like Sens. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) are getting concerned about their re-election prospects and pushing back on the price of Stimulus II.
• And House Democrats are saying that the Senate Democrats’ bill isn’t big enough, and aren’t happy about Reid trying to break apart the bill they passed in December into smaller pieces.

But among the “blizzard” of chaos, Americans continue to lose their jobs and are left in the dark when it comes to how Stimulus II is being formed. As we highlighted on Friday, the negotiations over Stimulus II seem to be very similar to the negotiations Dems had with their government-run health care experiment: no details, no transparency, and a guarantee of more binge spending.